by Ben Galley
Thunk!
The triggerbow bolt protruding from his chest distracted him. It happened so abruptly, it took a moment for him to register he had been shot. By the time he had grasped the black fletching, he was already sliding down the wall, heart stopped.
The soldiers bristled, quickly falling into formation. Hasheti stood at their centre shield high and spear forwards. He stamped his foot, and it was echoed by his soldiers. The phalanx grew by the moment as more soldiers ran to join them.
From beyond the light of the lanterns, an empty and open hand emerged, followed by a woman in smart plate and mail. Her head was enveloped in a hood, and a red cloak trailed behind her. At her side she grasped a sack made of some dead animal. The head of a dog or wolf was still attached to the hide, lolling in Hasheti’s direction and staring at him with glassy eyes. Beyond Liria, Hasheti could see other shapes waiting there, and the dull glint of steel and arrowheads.
‘Good evening, Soldier-General Hasheti,’ said the shade, in a voice as soft as velvet.
‘State your name and business!’
The woman held out the hide sack. It looked heavy, swollen. ‘Enlightened Sister Liria, and my business is with you, and the question of your allegiance,’ Liria replied.
Hasheti shook his head. ‘That is not in question, cultist. Our master is Sisine Talin Renala.’ He stamped his foot once more, and his soldiers shook the corridor.
The shade smiled. ‘Is that so?’ she asked.
Seizing the bottom of the hide sack, Liria shook it out, casting a pile of half-coins across the marble.
‘Now you are your own masters.’
Hasheti could feel the draw to his coin, somewhere amongst the pile; the slip of copper he had not seen or touched in years. Behind him, the soldiers began to whisper. Some crept forwards, breaking formation.
‘What is it you want?’
‘Your allegiance,’ Liria said with a shrug. ‘But through choice. Stand with the Church of Sesh tomorrow at the Grand Nyxwell. Watch the dawn of a new era.’
With a pretend clearing of his throat, Hasheti threw down his shield and spear. They clanged against the marble, breaking the silence. Then he removed his helmet, and after looking at his lack of a reflection in the polished steel, he cast it aside.
Chapter 25
A Spark
A weaker mind is broken by struggle and misfortune. Greater minds triumph over them.
From the great philosopher Menem
A poet once said there is such a thing as too much thinking; that a constant search for better answers can dim even the brightest of ideas.
Caltro Basalt looked as though he had done far too much thinking. He had spent the night doing nothing but, after all, and as unusual as it was for him, he had done it in almost complete silence.
There had been the few odd words. ‘Stop staring at me,’ and, ‘Nothing. Just trust me,’ whenever Pointy questioned what Caltro had seen in the small, smoky room. Whatever decision he was striving to reach, it seemed a torturous one. He had roamed around the sparse room beneath the earth, switching between bed, chair, pacing, even the floor, and back again. A cycle as repetitive as the stories he was no doubt weaving in that blue skull of his.
It was odd for a sword to pray, but Pointy felt like doing it anyway, and hoped to the dead gods Caltro was choosing the right path. He had been forced to flit between so many in his desperate search for freedom.
Through it all, the strange phantom dog the Cult had apparently gifted him hung by his side. It was a long-legged, lean thing, with a sharp snout and ears like Araxes spires. A white scar traced its entire body, from under its white eyes to its swishing tail. Gods knew why, but the thing had an affinity for the locksmith. It lay down when he did. Paced when he did. Even buried its blue nose in its paws when Caltro tried for the fiftieth time to rip out his vaporous hair.
Pointy was forced to watch the whole evening and morning on his side, laid flat on a wooden lockbox. It was strange how accustomed to that view of the world he had become over the years.
‘Caltro…’ Pointy spoke up after perhaps an hour or two of idly looking around the room, watching the locksmith try to sweat. ‘You’re running out of time. What are you going to do? Surely you’re not going to help the Cult? Nilith has the—’
‘Quiet, Pointy. I told you: trust me.’
The phantom dog looked at the sword with the same judging look as Caltro did, and Pointy held his tongue. For a while, at least.
‘Don’t I get a say in all of this? Or do I just have to hang off your hip the entire time?’
Caltro covered his face with his hands, and the phantom whined as it covered its head with a paw.
Bang, went the door, and Pointy knew the chance for talking some sense into him was over. Normally, Caltro would challenge every gods damned word. His lack of rebuttal was ominous.
An armoured Enlightened Sister Liria entered the room alone, but Pointy caught a glimpse of the thick, steel-plated legs of Danib lurking outside. The blade of a familiar-looking greatsword hung below his hip. Pointy scowled as deeply as he could.
‘I trust you are rested, brother?’ said Liria cheerily.
‘As much as a ghost can be.’
‘“Ghost.” How Krass of you,’ the sister tittered.
Caltro raised his chin, lips tight. ‘“Shade” is too soft a term for the way we are treated,’ he replied, and Liria nodded appreciatively.
‘I am pleased to hear that, brother. Come, time is short. Farazar’s ghost wanes. However.’ Liria held up a finger before moving to lift Pointy from the trunk, one hand on his blade, one on the handle. Pointy concentrated hard. It was tougher than usual, as if Liria felt him touching her mind, but he managed to make her flinch enough to slice a white line into her palm.
‘Agh,’ she hissed, placing Pointy on the bed. ‘A sharp sword indeed, Caltro.’
‘Isn’t he just?’ replied the locksmith, eying Pointy with what the sword assumed to be distaste.
‘We have one last gift for you.’
‘You spoil me, Sister.’
Liria produced some spindly lockpicks from her robe.
‘My tools.’
‘The ones we could recover. Care to try your hand at the lockbox?’
Caltro seemed to stifle a chuckle. Pointy wondered how the shade always managed to have levity in these situations. He was incorrigible.
‘You don’t want to know what happened the last time I tackled a lockbox,’ he said.
Pointy dreaded to think.
Within a few short moments, the locksmith proved his worth and heaved the trunk open until the lid stayed upright. ‘Erm. Pretty?’
Pointy strained to see from the bed. The phantom dog was blocking half the view, playing at panting.
‘Copper core for ease of wear and bound with steel so it does not harm your vapours. Made by the finest Church smiths. Did you know Sesh is also the god of the forge?’ explained Liria.
Caltro lifted up a pauldron of hammered steel and intricate scale mail, and finally Pointy understood what the fuss was over. ‘I did not,’ said Caltro. ‘However, I am not usually one for armour.’
Liria began to strap pieces onto the locksmith as she spoke. ‘You are not usually one for standing beside an empress as she claims her throne, but you shall today. As will we all. There.’
Caltro examined himself, pulling at hinges and flexing as if he were expecting to do some gymnastics. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Thank you once again, Sister.’
‘As we told you, Caltro, there are many benefits to being a dutiful member of the Church of Sesh.’ Liria was already leading him to the door, and so far Caltro seemed content to leave both the sword and the phantom on the bed. Until the last moment, when he shrugged away from Liria’s guiding hand, and grabbed Pointy’s handle.
‘Almost forgot,’ he said with a roll of his eyes.
Pointy caught Liria’s stare once the sword hung from the locksmith’s belt. It was intent, examining every fleck o
f mica in Pointy’s obsidian pommel. He kept his scowl. If there was anything an inanimate object with a soul trapped inside it was good at, it was winning staring contests, and Liria quickly lost as they weaved through the corridors.
Nilith paced. Pacing was good for the soul. Good for the heart. Good for the mind, or so she’d been told by her daughter. This was a good thing, seeing as each one of hers was in disarray. Then again, considering how Sisine had turned out, perhaps pacing was not all that beneficial.
Nilith stopped in the middle of the small square of flagstones she had found, trapped between two levels high up the Cathedral. She had lost count of the wagons and supplies she had seen ferried past her. There had been an endless stream of ghosts, living, beetles, horses, centipedes, donkeys, each piled high with bundles. And soldiers, thousands of them, every one of them a ghost, and each bearing a sword and spear. It seemed every single one of the souls that had crammed the tiers of the Katra Rassan had now vacated above ground, leaving the Cathedral spookily empty, and devoid of sound. It made Nilith uncomfortable, much like the void of the desert nights, dreading the galloping of hooves.
She wished Etane were there. The old ghost had always managed to either goad her or scold her onto the right path – that, or make her realise she was already on it. In the evening, she had spared a single and private tear for her old house-shade, her coracle within the tumultuous rapids of the Talin Renala household. She had cursed the name of Danib Ironjaw, too.
Removing her borrowed scimitar from its sheath, Nilith swung it around to test the stretch of her old ceremonial armour, delivered sometime in the night by the cultists. It had been a decade since she had last worn it, maybe longer. It was a little looser in some places after her time in the desert, but it was fine steel and gold, studded with shards of turquoise and aquamarine. It made Nilith stand a fraction straighter, and feel the empress she had to play today.
She swung again, and there was a jolt at her throat. She dug under her breastplate to adjust the pouch of Old Fen’s powder. Like the copper coin that hung next to it, both had become charms of luck. Nilith closed her eyes as she held them, feeling the cold, ragged edges of her body, and took a deep breath to keep from shuddering. The ghast’s poison was barely hidden by her collar. It had also begun to spread down her stomach, bringing pains as the living parts died before turning to vapour.
A jangling of chains distracted her, telling her the last inhabitants of Katra Rassan were due to leave. Nilith turned around to find Sisters Liria and Yaridin, Caltro, and the horned monster of Danib standing with a group of prisoners. A flutter of wings told her the Cult had kept their promise of healing Bezel, but she hadn’t yet asked them to release the falcon. Not yet. Nilith met his golden eyes, and though they were narrowed, she could see he understood.
Sisine stood there, between Hirana and Temsa. Iron collars were clasped around their necks – or arms, in Temsa’s case – and their chains held by a group of heavily armoured Cult soldiers that stood behind them. Amongst them was Farazar, wearing the stormiest expression of them all.
‘Is this how you would have the city see their empress-in-waiting, Mother? Or the Cloud Court? Chained and bound! How dare you?’
Liria approached Nilith before she could answer. In the ghost’s hand, she held three half-coins. Nilith recognised their glyphs immediately.
‘For when you decide what to do with them,’ Liria advised in a quiet voice. ‘If I may?’ The sister held out a short cloak and draped it over the empress’ left arm, where blue vapour curled from between the joints in her armour and frosted the gold. ‘Are you ready, Empress?’
Nilith looked at her scowling daughter, knowing that Sisine would only hate her more from here on in. Hirana was just as outraged, but as far as Nilith was concerned, the Cult should have left her on the flagstones.
What hopes she’d had of Sisine coming around to her way of thinking had been dashed the moment she’d awoken to find her dead daughter staring back at her from across the cell. Quite unable to form words, except somehow she managed to form enough to curse her. Nilith’s months away had gilded Sisine’s demeanour towards her and romanticised their relationship. Now, seeing father and daughter beside each other, matching furrows on their brows, Nilith knew she would always be an outsider. It cut like a dagger to the heart to see it so plainly, but it was unavoidable. It felt like failure to her.
‘Ready, Empress? Liria said again.
‘I am,’ answered Nilith, nodding resolutely. She took her place at the head of the group, near where Caltro stood. The locksmith gave her a wry smile, but otherwise faced forwards and stayed silent.
‘I didn’t take you for the armour-wearing sort,’ Nilith whispered to Caltro.
He flexed his ash-grey gauntlets. ‘When you can’t beat them…’
‘Join them,’ she sighed.
‘Am I the only one who hasn’t lost his mind?’ said a metallic voice between them.
‘And what would you have us do?’ Caltro snapped at the sword on his hip.
Liria and Yaridin flanked them, silent, their eyes wide and eager. They seemed enlivened. Taking the lead, the sisters guided them up a series of wide ramps that emerged within a grand warehouse on what Nilith assumed to be street level. A swathe of soldiers and beasts and wagons awaited them.
‘There is a whole district between here and the Grand Nyxwell,’ she said.
‘A parade is customary, Empress. There are those who do not believe such a saviour has appeared in their direst hours. They need to see it with their own eyes,’ Liria replied. ‘And do you not deserve to be welcomed as a victor, after all you’ve fought for?’
Liria gestured behind Nilith, and the empress turned to find Anoish standing behind her, dwarfed between two horned scarabs bearing pairs of riders. He had been groomed from snout to tail, and was bedecked with gold and turquoise ribbons. A skirt of mail hung from his sides, and a gold, spiked shaffron placed over his proud nose. His dark, chestnut eyes stared at her with part-excitement, part-blame for his costume. Nilith thought he looked regal for a desert horse.
‘You deserve none of this, Mother!’ Sisine cried.
‘Hear, hear,’ Farazar joined in.
Danib threatened both of them with the tip of his greatsword.
‘You stay back, beast. You didn’t scare me in the time of my father, and you don’t scare me now,’ argued Farazar.
Danib growled at that, making vapour puff from the vents of his horned helmet like the hot breath of a beast. Farazar shrank away.
Weak as Nilith was, mounting the horse took several tries, but with Caltro’s help, she managed it. It felt satisfying to be astride the horse again. Anoish seemed to feel it, too, prancing this way and that, his hooves clopping on the floorboards.
With the clanking of chains, the doors of the warehouse were opened, and bright sunlight spilled across the dusty floor. Nilith could see palm trees and sandstone pillars, etched with weathered faces of past emperors and empresses.
A horn was blasted somewhere amidst the throng of glowing soldiers, and with a rumble of feet and hooves and armour, the entourage formed up to leave.
The procession gathered momentum within moments. Shouts ricocheted down the Avenue of Oshirim, bringing crowds from the towers and grand houses that lined the wide street. With the Cult soldiers forming a blade of shields and spears, they cut through the growing crowds swiftly, leaving Nilith to look about at the Arctians as she rode at the front of the procession. Caltro rode alongside on a horse, looking rather uneasy. The sisters rode behind them in an open carriage, shielded from the sun by cotton umbrellas. The ghost prisoners were kept in a similar carriage that tailed theirs.
‘Nyxwater! Nyxwater!’ came the shouts from the crowd, over and over, no matter how many cheers or yells of, ‘Empress!’ and no matter how much richer the avenue around them grew.
‘I wish I could tell them that by the end of today, they won’t need to worry about Nyxwater,’ Nilith muttered to the ghost by her
side.
Caltro didn’t deign to reply, merely looking around, eyeing up the living who brayed for water.
‘You’re quiet today, locksmith.’
The ghost turned his white eyes upon her. ‘Is it me, or has everything been said? Doing, not talking, is what today needs,’ he replied sternly, as if trying to convince himself of the same truth.
Nilith remained silent for the remainder of the journey, too busy drinking in the moments she had dreamed of for months, perhaps years, if she was truthful. It was too easy to be swept up in the adoration, the power of it all, if she let herself fall for it. Freedom. Justice. Nilith kept the words spinning around and around her head, even when swathes of the crowd fell to their knees as she passed, as if she were a dead god risen, and when lotus and rose petals fell like snow on Krass steppes.
Before long, Nilith spied the black tips of the Grand Nyxwell’s tusks over the smaller high-roads and more modest buildings. Her heart, stubbornly clinging on despite the flesh about it turning to cold mist, began to thud, reverberating around what was left of her body. Nilith forced herself to count every beat, less some cruel twist of luck make it fail before she had claimed Farazar’s throne. She clutched the grey cloak about her left arm, ensuring it hadn’t slipped.
Their progress slowed as the crowds squeezed into the half-dozen Spoke Avenues that met at the Grand Nyxwell. Looking over the heads of the masses, almost equal parts glowing and living, Nilith could see the avenues congested for miles, until distance and heat haze stole their number from view. A large quota of wagons parked along the sides of the streets complicated issues greatly, but Cult soldiers stood around them, even used them as parapets from which to watch the crowds.
Once inside the plaza, Nilith gazed out over the knight statues kneeling before the Grand Nyxwell, swords in hand and heads bowed. It took another hour, perhaps longer, for the ghost soldiers to part the crowds enough to make a path to the Nyxwell’s dais. The cries of, ‘Nyxwater!’ became almost constant. Here and there, she spotted handcarts carrying slumped corpses, or the familiar sight of bloodied sacks tugged by ropes. Some were hopefuls, eager to bind their dead in the same well and water a royal had been bound in. The rest were desperate, and looked as though they had been dragging their unbound for almost as many miles as Nilith had, just to find a Nyxwell that wasn’t dry. Fights broke out here and there beyond the ever-moving halo of cheering and bowing bodies. Red-cloaked soldiers spread amongst the crowds to put them out like forest fires.