Luck toppled back. He was aware of hands catching him, lowering him to the floor. As the darkness came, he realised he had found Oblivion at its feast after all. Though this was not the one all sought, an easeful nothing brought by love-making and mead. This was filled with hideous shapes moving through gloom, and with an evil of a depth and weight such as he had never known. All centred in the face of a shaven, black-eyed, black-toothed man.
‘He saw me.’
‘Your killer?’
‘No, horse king. Alon is dead.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘Because it was another who saw me. Alon would never have allowed that if he were alive.’
A woman’s voice. ‘You told us only holy men could use the smoke. It is why you denied it to us, your allies.’
‘It is true. So perhaps, in his way, the man I saw is holy too.’
A snort. ‘In his way? Do you mean one of their gods?’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps the one we’ve heard about.’
‘Blasphemy!’ A different voice spat the word. ‘There is only one god.’
‘We know that, seafarer. The ignorant do not.’
‘They will learn.’
‘They will.’ A silence, then, ‘This concerns me. If Alon failed, or succeeded and then was caught, they may have finally discovered that we are killing their gods.’
‘Men, I keep telling you! Not gods. Just because they are immortal …’
‘Immortals who can die. And fewer of them now. But enough? Have we killed enough?’
‘It was your idea, priest. That if we reduced their number, the few who remained would not be enough to unite a people who never unite, who only fight amongst themselves. Who, disunited, would never be able to resist us.’ The woman snorted. ‘I never thought it necessary.’
‘I did. It was a good idea, huntress. For our northern campaign. Now we will have to hope we have done enough – and accelerate our other plans.’
‘How? The tunnel into Corinthium is not close to ready. A thin man can squeeze through, as the one we sent did, but …’
‘… not a horse, king. And we know you go nowhere without your horses.’
‘We cannot conquer without them—’
‘How long?’
‘We already kill a dozen slaves a day in those mines.’
‘Kill more. Kill them quicker. How long?’
A sucking of lips. ‘Two passes of the blue moon.’
‘Hmm. Seafarer, will your sea be sailable by then?’
‘Perhaps. It would still be a risk.’
‘It is all a risk.’ A silence, then, ‘This one I saw in the smoke. He was not physically strong, I felt. But his mind?’ A deep breath. ‘How many vessels were you going to take?’
‘Fifty. Enough to conquer a divided land town by town.’
‘Take a hundred. It may not be so divided by the time we reach it.’
‘One hundred ships? That’s a lot of men to raise in a short time.’
‘Not when the prize is the whole world.’
‘A whole world worth nothing unless the One is come.’ It was the huntress who spoke and the other men joined her in her cry. ‘Praise her. Praise him. The One!’
The rougher voice came again. ‘Has my ship made the shores of Ometepe? Have you spoken to your emissary?’
‘Who can tell of my sister Gistrane,’ the woman said.
‘And of my brother Korshak,’ added the horse king. ‘Have you heard?’
‘Not in a week.’ The man they called the priest sighed. ‘The distances are vast, the storms between us … disruptive. I will try later. We will find each other eventually.’
‘Do so. I cannot raise so many without knowing if the prophecy is true.’
‘Have faith, seafarer.’
‘I have the faith, priest. But my sailors are simple men and need some proof.’
‘Then I shall get it for them.’ A pause. ‘And if I do? Can we advance? Complete the tunnel through the southern mountains? Sail through the mountainous seas in the north? Send the second fleet to Ometepe?’
‘By when?’
‘The zenith of the moons. The first day of summer.’
Three hisses. Then one voice, the woman’s.
‘Yes! Yes, by the One, let us begin the hunt.’
Another: ‘Yes, by the One, we will ride.’
Another: ‘Yes, by the One, yes! We will sail.’
‘Yes, huntress. Yes, horse king. Yes, seafarer. And before your warriors we priests will raise the banners of our god.’ Fleshy lips parted over black teeth. ‘By the One, when the two moons ride equally in the sky, on that first day of summer,’ black eyes glowed, ‘let us go and conquer the world.’
4
The Sanctum on the Hill
Lara lay on the bowsprit of the ship, her hands gripping the netting, her thighs the wood, the water a cascade of foam a spear’s length below her. She’d found this perch early in the voyage, a stormy refuge. At first she’d seek it to ease her sickness, for she’d never been to sea and the motion hit her hard. The cool spray and wind in her face, the ability to void out of sight of others the little she managed to get down of the ship’s foul food, all made it a good place. Yet even after she’d gained control, and the nausea had passed, she still returned there several times a day and the rougher the sea the better. As the Black Cormorant bucked, rose and fell, it reminded her of riding Saipha, whose ears always stuck straight up and so was named for that horned moon. The pony had been her lover’s first gift to her. He’d taught her to ride – but within a year she was near as good as her tutor and they’d race laughing over waves, though these were made not of water but of sand on the desert floor. She’d laugh sometimes now, as the boat leapt and landed. But she wouldn’t laugh long, remembering too soon where this race was headed, before remembering the other reason she came there. Not just to be alone. To be away from the man in the cabin below, and the fear in his eyes.
‘Ferros!’ she shouted into the wind, knowing that would carry it beyond the hearing of any sailor or passenger. She also came here to say the things she could not say to him in that cabin. From the moment they’d met five years before they’d always said anything, everything. To not be able to or, if she tried, to get no response was a pain greater than she’d ever known. So she gave words here each day, to wind and water.
‘Ferros.’ She said it this time as a caress not a blow. ‘Where have you gone? How far away are you?’
It had changed everything, the revelation of his immortality. For him entirely, of course, but for her as well. She’d understood the change as soon as she’d seen him on that infirmary cot; one far greater than the scar caused by an arrow that had ripped out his eye, ripped away his old life. Even in the three weeks of sailing, the scar was almost gone, the eye regrown and returned to its same, beautiful cerulean blue. But the old look within it – the self-belief, the swagger that she mocked sometimes and always adored – that had not healed, that had not returned.
The ship rose and fell, a set of ever growing waves drenching her. But the autumn had continued near as hot as summer, and the water was a cool relief. She’d tried to persuade him to take his turn there, but he claimed he had no time, he must be at his books. General Olankios had sent a tutor to accompany Ferros, a Timian monk called Gan; for Ferros had left schooling to join his regiment at ten and neglected all but war studies since. Now, for what awaited him in Corinthium, he would need to know more about books and quills and less about maps and blades.
Corinthium! She peered forward, as the seventh big wave passed over her and the next set began. She couldn’t see the city, not yet. But they’d been told that with this following wind they would be there three hours before sunset. Then what? she wondered. A life begins that I will have so little control over. She didn’t have much back in Balbek. But she kn
ew the small town’s every cobble and eaves. She had her brothers and sisters, all younger than her and in her thrall. She had her parents – or did she now? They had made it clear that if she did this, if she followed this soldier to the city – unmarried, for there was not time for all the ritual required – then she was their daughter no more. To make love to your chosen one before marriage was understood, if never discussed. To move from your parents’ house into his was not. It offended both civil law and the gods. Yet the words her father had shouted were in the heat of that last fierce row. She’d always eased his darkest moods with her gentle voice, her laugh. Surely she could do that again if …
If? If what? Her parents and siblings had been only five of the voices raised against her course. Ferros had been the last, the most insistent. Wait, he’d said. I will return, he’d said. But she could not because she knew he would not. His destiny would take him away for ever, and the light he’d brought into her life five years before, when she was just sixteen, would be extinguished. So she’d ignored his reasoned pleas, shut out the sound of her mother’s wailing, her father’s fury, the tracks of Aisha’s tears on her little sister’s upturned, precious face. She’d waited for him at dawn on the dock. He hadn’t said anything then. Simply shrugged and let her follow him up the gangplank.
He hadn’t said much since. He hadn’t done much since. In the four years since they’d started making love they had rarely stopped. Only in those times when she knew they risked a child would they halt … a little. For even then, there was always plenty to explore, a different map into a world of wonders. Only here, now, on this ship had they reached a featureless desert.
The thought of him, of holding him that way, of being held, had her sliding back along the bowsprit. When her toe touched the wood of the hull, she turned, climbed and slid over the gunwale. A sailor was bent over nearby, coiling ropes. He straightened and his gaze moved over her. Her simple dress was soaked and it pressed against her everywhere, like a second skin. The brown eyes in the sailor’s tanned face widened. But she didn’t fold herself demurely or drop her own eyes. She just looked past the man she did not want to the one she did.
Ferros stood with the captain of the ship, a gnarled seaman from the Acrana Isles called Mikon. He said something, moved away. Ferros stared down for a moment then turned, saw her. He came forward, as the sailor beside her stopped gazing, and returned to coiling ropes. Apart from Lara only his tutor knew that Ferros was immortal. But all knew he was a soldier, a veteran at twenty-three, gifted in killing – and that Lara was his woman.
‘The captain says that since the wind’s picked up, we are making even better time.’ Ferros nodded his head forward. ‘In two hours we’ll see Corinthium rising from the water. The greatest sight in the world, he says. Not to be missed.’
He looked ahead. She looked at him. Despite spending so much time below decks, his desert soldier’s skin was still deep brown, his eyes still a burst of blue against it. He wore the loose, green summer tunic of the army, revealing shoulders muscled from years of work with sword and shield, bow and lance; tight over his chest, the wind pressed the material against his flat stomach.
His gaze had moved from his future in the city ahead, to his present before him. He was looking at the swell of her breasts, straining against wet cloth. She watched his eyes move down, and rest where the dress cut across her thighs.
‘Then we’d better hurry,’ she said, ‘so we don’t miss it.’
She took his hand, pulled. He didn’t move. ‘Lara,’ he said.
‘No more words. We’ve had too many words and not enough. Come.’
Ferros was wrenched from his dream by a cry. Ashtan was calling him, urging him to wake and fight. He reached to his sword, sheathed and hanging from a hook on the cabin wall. But as he touched it he realised that Ashtan was dead, and that the cry came from a seagull. Which meant that they must be nearing land.
A softer cry came from beside him. He looked down. Lara was naked and sprawled across him, her light brown hair, still damp from sea spray, unbound and flowing in waves over his chest, one hand gripping his left shoulder, her stomach pressed to his, their legs entwined. From the first time they’d made love, it was always thus – she would strive to touch as much of his body as she could reach with hers; fall asleep on him, settle and match him breath for breath. At first he’d found it uncomfortable. Orphaned at seven, he was unused to gentle touch and the women he’d slept with before, all three of them, had been tavern girls, eager to please for the coins agreed upon, eager to be gone to get more. But Lara would not be shaken off, even in sleep. At the beginning he’d slip from under her, think her gone – and wake to find her joined to him again, at breast, hip and thigh. He learned to not only accept it, but revel in it, adjusting to find their perfect fit, a child’s wooden puzzle, complete.
He reached down, combed his fingers through her curls. She muttered something, turned to his hand. He pinched one tress between thumb and forefinger, rubbed, froze. A phrase came into his head. He thought it was the general who’d said it, though he’d been slipping into the poppy’s embrace when the words were spoken. ‘Claimed by time.’ Had Olankios said that? Was it him the general had been referring to? Yes – and no. Time claimed everyone, no one shook its steady grip. But it would claim him far more slowly, if at all. Perhaps he would age, imperceptibly. It was one of the questions he needed to ask. But the tress he held would certainly change. Silver, thin, whiten …
He let it go, rubbed his fingers as if to cleanse them. He’d tried to leave Lara in Balbek, a great hurt to spare her the greater one to come. But deep down he knew he’d been lying to both of them. It was himself who wanted to avoid the pain. There was so much he did not understand about immortality. Gan, his tutor, would tell him almost nothing, only push him to studies of things he thought he’d long done away with – geometry, faith, philosophy, none of which were needed in a night fight. But this he did understand: that he could not bear to watch the only woman he’d ever loved claimed by time. It would kill him, even as it killed her. And yet, of course, he would not die.
He tried to slip out from under her now without waking her. She woke on the instant. ‘Stay, love,’ she murmured, pressing into him. ‘A little longer.’
He could not. ‘Listen. Sea birds,’ he whispered. ‘We’re getting close.’
She opened her eyes. ‘Of course!’ she said. ‘The greatest sight in the world.’ She leapt up, grabbed his hand. ‘Come on, lazy! We mustn’t miss it.’
It was a matter of a moment to fling on their one-piece clothes: his tunic, her damp dress. They ran up the short stair to the deck. They turned forward, halted, tottering on bare feet. Gasped and clutched each other.
Corinthium.
They’d been making love when the city had first appeared on the horizon. Slept while it grew from the sea. Now it was close, perhaps half a mile away.
He couldn’t breathe! The city overwhelmed him. He’d known it as facts on parchment, sketches and maps and statistics. None of that came close to summing it up. In Balbek the tallest structure was the donjon of the fortress, its ramparts three storeys high. It would have been a squat footstool to the gleaming towers before him. Soaring edifices filled the sky like the jagged teeth of some gargantuan monster, faced in coloured marble that gleamed green, blue and white, yet all burnished red-gold now by the sun setting behind the ship. Each tower had been built by one of the families that had ruled the empire for centuries – Lascartis, Gonarios, Trebans amongst them – outdoing each other in height and splendour, striving to reach the clouds and shake hands with the gods. Only when the immortals took control near five hundred years before did the competition cease, and edicts limit the height to protect the citizens, too many of whom had died when ambition yielded to gravity and towers tumbled. And even if some families still lived in them, the towers were no longer fortresses to be fought from. The immortals had brought peace as well
as building codes to Corinthium and a web of walkways now passed between the towers, where arrow, spear and stone once flew.
Balbek was a sprawl along a shore. Yet five Balbeks could have fitted easily into the frontage before Ferros. He knew, though, that the front was small compared to the city’s depth. Corinthium went back for miles through a labyrinth of streets and alleys spread over six hills, all narrowing back to the seventh, the smallest, highest. It was so far back that he still couldn’t see it. Yet the sense of it dominated everything before it. It was a city within a city, sacred and secret. The main arena was there for the games and the sacrifices. The council chambers too, where laws were made and wars declared. Unlike the ant’s nest confusion of the six other hills, their teeming life, relatively few lived among the seventh hill’s parks and plazas. Only the immortals and those who took care of them.
It was called Agueros. At its summit was a palace made entirely from red marble. This was the Sanctum on the Hill and it was both his destination and his destiny.
Ferros was looking so far ahead that he didn’t notice the wonders closer to. ‘Oh beautiful!’ Lara cried, digging her fingers into his arm. The ship was approaching the entrance to the harbour. Two long stone jetties curved like bull horns from the land beyond. Atop each, hundreds of men and boys wielded fishing rods, casting into the blue-green waters. At both jetties’ ends stood a giant stone figure, each three times the height of Balbek’s donjon. They were men, carved in simple, graceful lines in the style favoured three hundred years before. The man to their left was a bare-faced warrior, wearing the simpler armour of those times: breastplate, an open-faced helmet crested with horsehair, a pleated tunic that reached mid-thigh, steel guards on his shins above low boots. He held the short stabbing sword called the glaive in his right hand. His left hand was stretched out, clasping the right hand of the man opposite him.
Stone curls flowed over this man’s head, blending into a short clipped beard. He wore a long gown that reached his bare feet. His arms were uncovered and in his left hand he held an unfurled scroll, writing upon it too cramped for Ferros to read.
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