The Tyranny of the Night iotn-1

by Glen Cook

  As always, in all times and in all places, despite the scale of the stakes, personalities gave definition to history. These two had loathed one another for half a century. The Archbishop was the less articulate of the two. But he was determined to execute the will of the Patriarch and his God.

  Snowflakes were in the air. On the walls of Antieux the city's defenders jeered and taunted. The Arnhanders were on the move, headed home. This time they would use the westward route because the one they had taken coming south had been foraged already. Baron Algres and his captains were uncomfortable with the situation. They were not accustomed to being in the field this late in the season, this far from home. Even Archbishop Berл now wondered aloud about the wisdom of those who had decreed this folly.

  Adolf Black and his Grolsacher veterans stuck with the Arnhander army. Their commission was about to expire but they had been offered employment on the frontiers of Tramaine. More telling than that offer, though, was news that angry Connectens were gathering to intercept them if they withdrew directly toward Grolsach.

  A thousand rumors plagued the army. Lately, there was a cycle of stories about the Grail Emperor asserting his rights in the Episcopal States of northern Firaldia and in Ormienden. And he had begun to revisit Imperial claims to several towns in Arnhand's eastern marches.

  Atop everything else, the Arnhander-founded crusader states in the east kept shrieking for help. The Lucidians were pressing them hard.

  Worse still, the King of Arnhand was extremely ill. His only surviving son was eleven, a will-less extension of his ambitious mother, a woman detested by everyone. She, like her failing husband, seemed incapable of understanding that just wishing would not make something happen. An example: soldiers had a regrettable tendency to demand regular pay, on time, for the risks they took. The money needed to pay and maintain them refused to be conjured out of thin air.

  A lot of time and treasure had gone down a rat hole so Baron Algres and Archbishop Berл could visit Antieux, be embarrassed, and leave two hundred Arnhander subjects in graves beneath Bishop Serifs's vineyards. To a man, they had perished from disease rather than enemy action.

  Starvation made it difficult to resist diseases.

  Dysentery remained widespread as the army made its stumbling retreat

  To the right of the ancient military road, two hundred feet back, stood a dense growth of gray-barked trees of a species common along the verges of high altitude wetlands. The ground was soft but not soggy. To the left of the road lay two hundred yards of increasingly boggy ground, then a narrow, slow, shallow stream. Beyond the stream stood a thin curtain of trees, then rocks that had fallen off sheer cliffs that rose for hundreds of feet. The morning sunlight crept down the dull face of the cliff. The stone was a dark gray but had a pinkish tinge wherever it was freshly bruised or broken.

  This was near the summit of the pass through the Black Mountains, still on the eastern side. Soon the road would swoop downhill and the worst would be over.

  A small breeze stirred the mist. The brightness of the light waned as the sun elevated itself above the trailing edge of those clouds that continued to shed the occasional desultory handful of snowflakes.

  The Arnhanders and their Grolsacher hirelings, traipsing along the ancient road, were cold, bitterly hungry, and thoroughly demoralized. They had invested three months of misery for no return. And their prospects were completely bleak.

  Worse than bleak.

  Connecten trumpets sounded. Far worse than bleak.

  Count Raymone Garete's avenging army was outnumbered. Despite the rage sweeping the Connec, not that many men were willing to defy Duke Tormond. Raymone's initial plan had been to launch a surprise attack on the invaders' column, in a place and at a time when they would be least alert. He wanted to punish the Arnhanders, then fade away, going more for an emotional and moral victory than a physical one. But the stunned Arnhanders made little effort to defend themselves. Instead of fighting they fled toward the marshy ground at the base of the cliffs.

  Adolf Black's Grolsachers gave a better accounting of themselves but with the same ultimate result.

  The slaughter continued until the Connectens had sated their bloodlust. That paid litde attention to rank or station. The Arnhander leadership perished because the armored Connecten knights could not ride out onto the wet ground. The men on foot, possessed of no class commonality with the nobility they slaughtered, took no prisoners.

  15. Ormienden, the Ownvidian Knot, and Plemenza

  Principatл Bronte Doneto could not travel with any vigor. There were days when he could not endure more than an hour on the road. Two weeks passed. The party covered no more ground than a normal band might have spanned in four days. Fortunately, no one seemed interested in interfering. And, Else noted, the Principatл's color and health improved steadily as he put distance between himself and Antieux.

  Once back in Ormienden, at the Dencitл Monastery, the Principate decided to convalesce.

  "Hey, Pipe. Want to hear some news?" Pinkus Ghort asked one morning.

  "If it's the real thing. I'm not looking for any more of the same old thing."

  "Guess I can't help you, after all."

  "Groan. So rain on me."

  "Just Plain Joe came in from his lookout down by the bridge. He says people are headed this way. Eight or nine of them. He thinks one might be Bishop Serifs."

  "Well. Makes you wonder what kind of sense of humor God really has, doesn't it?"

  "Makes me wonder if the Maysaleans maybe don't have it right when they say it was the Adversary who won the war in heaven."

  "Good thing our boss can't hear you. He'd have you burned."

  The Principatл had been making those kinds of noises lately. The Church was bleeding and Bronte Doneto was determined to cauterize its wounds.

  Ghort was cynical about the whole thing. "Doneto is posturing. He don't believe the shit he's putting out. It's excuse crap he tosses around so he can do cruel shit and claim he's got a good reason."

  Else observed, "You're awfully critical of the guy who's paying you to protect him."

  "He ain't paying me to lie about him, only to keep his ass alive."

  Else shrugged. "I don't think I'd have the moral flexibility to protect somebody like Serifs. Somebody wanted to cut his throat, I'd probably hand him a knife and hold his coat while he's working."

  Ghort got a laugh out of that.

  Bishop Serifs went straight into the monastery. He was not seen again for days. Else noted that Osa Stile became invisible when the bishop did so.

  Several days later a message arrived from Brothe. It included news that Grade Drocker had made his way successfully to the Castella dollas Pontellas in the capital city.

  Which news caused Pinkus Ghort to declare, "My heart is all aflutter. The world can go on. Old Ugly lives."

  "I was kind of thinking that way myself."

  More interesting news washed the thrill of the sorcerer's survival away. A substantial Arnhander force had rushed into the Connec. It was besieging Antieux. Else observed, "That won't do the Patriarch's cause any good. Those people won't be simple twice."

  "Fine by me," Ghort said. "Let them sit there freezing their asses off and starving. They ought to put all Arnhanders through that. And double for that asshole, Adolf Black."

  "Every day I spend around you I find out about somebody else that you don't like."

  Ghort laughed. "He's got me figured."

  Bo Biogna had just wandered in. "What've I been missin'? What's so funny?"

  "Life itself," Else replied. "Sit down and look at where you're at. Then remember where you hoped you'd be now, say, twelve years ago."

  Biogna shook his head. "Pipe, I got a notion you're a good guy to have in charge when the shit comes down but the rest of the time you're too fuckin' serious."

  Ghort sneered. "Now Bo's got you nailed."

  "Blame it on my upbringing." Which was a truth that revealed nothing.

  The time spent
loafing around at the monastery, waiting for Principatл Doneto to heal up, passed into Else Tage's personal history as close to halcyon. Not once before in his life had he had a month where he had so little to do.

  Then snippets of news about the Arnhander disaster in the Connec began to arrive. At first Else was sure the reports were exaggerated. But next day a courier arrived from Brothe. He brought orders from the Patriarch himself. The Collegium would convene to formulate the Church's response to the massacre. Not only had the Connecten heretics spit in the face of all good Chaldareans, they had raped away the lives of numerous members of the most important families of Arnhand.

  Bronte Doneto assembled his band. "We're not ready to travel. But travel we must. The Instrumentalities of the Night walk the earth unopposed. The Holy Father has summoned me. He plans to charge me with managing the Church's response once a course is decided."

  Odd choice of words, Else thought. The messenger said Sublime wanted Doneto back in Brothe because he needed the Principatл's voice and vote in the Collegium. The Collegium frustrated Sublime's ambitions too often, thwarting him just to remind him that even the Voice of God on Earth was subject to checks.

  Else told Ghort, "Doneto must have sensed something that wasn't in the literal text of the summons."

  "He saw what he wanted to see."

  Bo wanted to know, "What happens after we get him home, Pipe? To us, I mean."

  "I don't know. I'm not sure I care. I'll be in Brothe, which was where I was headed when I ran into you guys originally."

  His path had taken several unexpected turns but he was not dissatisfied, overall. He had learned a great deal about the west. He had become a tick in its fur. And now he was headed toward the center of the web again.

  "I like that," Ghort said. "I was headed for Brothe myself when I let me get distracted by a chance to get rich.”

  Else said, "Well, let's all go get rich in the heart of the old empire."

  Doneto began traveling the next day.By then more rumors had reached the monastery, painting the Arnhander defeat in darker, bloodier colors. There had been few survivors, even amongst the nobles and clergy, who usually bought their ways out of the consequences of military disasters.

  This would rock the world. This would define the future. After this, surely, Sublime would abandon all overseas ambitions and focus completely on the Connec.

  Bronte Doneto was in better health but could not travel with any speed. A week after leaving the Dencitл Monastery his party still had not departed Ormienden.

  The travelers were nervous. Things of the night had been active throughout the hours of darkness, though with no obvious purpose. When they were restless, then so must be the creatures of the day.

  Grumbling softly, Else walked with Just Plain Joe and Pig Iron. Bo Biogna tagged along behind. They made up the rear guard. With the mule being the most useful of the bunch.

  Pinkus Ghort was out front, as vanguard and point, shouting back alarms about ghosts in the mist.

  It was cold. Colder than Else had encountered, ever, in Dreanger. The wet weather did not help. It hid night things that were not false alarms.

  Just Plain Joe teased Else about how he had gotten soft since he had come south.

  Winters in the land whence Piper Hecht purportedly hailed were renown for their savagery. Each summer the ice did not retreat as far as it had the summer before.

  Else did not keep up his end of the banter. He watched Bishop Serifs and Osa, examining the depth of his own devotion to his god and country. He could not imagine enduring what Osa had.

  Else suspected that Serifs's awful behavior had come about because of Osa's bedroom manipulations.

  The weather was miserable. A cold, fine mist kept falling. That wore a man down, made it hard to concentrate. The resentment and controlled hostility of the local populace did not help, nor did the constant presence of night things in the mist, even by day, just beyond the range of vision.

  A psychotic depression brought to life, Else thought. This was what he had expected the west to be like all the time.

  The mist crawled with shadows and whispers.

  Ormienden was not as tame as most would claim.

  That was probably true everywhere. In some places things of the night concealed themselves better.

  Some sort of excitement broke out at the head of the column.

  In moments Else found himself being disarmed by soldiers in unfamiliar livery.

  The Instrumentalities of the Night had been active because some wizard had used them to help conceal the presence of the soldiers.

  Resistance was pointless.

  Only Bishop Serifs was dim enough to try to make demands, to boom orders at people who did not give a damn what he said.

  The soldiers beat Serifs. And laid on with renewed enthusiasm every time the bishop opened his mouth. Nor did they help him once the beatings took their toll. A noncom told Serifs he would be killed if he did not keep up.

  Else made sure his companions did nothing to trigger their captors. Their easiest way of dealing with prisoners would be to kill them.

  Else said a silent prayer and placed himself in the hands of God. "Ghort, you have any idea who these men are?"

  "They're the Emperor's men. From his own guard. The Braunsknechts. Maybe from Viscesment."

  On political maps Ormienden lay within the New Brothen Empire, despite its constituent counties and principalities sometimes owing their first allegiance elsewhere. Viscesment sat on the border between Ormienden and the Connec, on the Ormienden side of the Dechear River. Although the folk of Viscesment spoke the Connecten dialect of Arnhander and everyone in the region considered the city Connecten.

  Viscesment lay ninety miles northwest of the ambush site.

  The Braunsknechts were not in a bloodthirsty mood. Their captain had orders to avoid making the incident more irksome to Brothe than the actual kidnapping of a Principatл of the Collegium would cause.

  "But we're not headed toward Viscesment," Else pointed out. "Viscesment would be back that way."

  "Look at the bright side, Pipe," Ghort said. "We might get to meet the Emperor himself, if we keep on headed this way."

  Bo Biogna grumbled, "Pipe, this guy is so contrary I bet he was born feetfirst."

  "How's that?" Else asked. He was still trying to make sense of what had happened. Why did God keep turning his path away from Brothe?

  "Shit, Pipe. When things is goin' good Ghort don' do nothin' but bitch. And when we're standin' on our heads in liquid shit, he goes to hummin' an' singin' like he just got laid."

  Ghort said, “That's because I know all is right with the world, Bo. It's normal, everyday situation is, throw the dick to Pinkus Ghort. I'm used to that. I'm comfortable with that. I can deal with that. Slip me the pork pole and I strut around grinning."

  Misty rain continued. Else grew nervous for no discernable reason. The nervousness was a state, an intuition, not connected to his current situation. Which, while better than it could have been, did not seem promising. The Braunsknechts tolerated their prisoners, excepting Bronte Doneto. It was clear that Bronte Doneto was what this was all about.

  Not keeping up with Doneto really might turn fatal.

  But the mist itself was most troubling. Else still felt presences out there more numerous now than before the ambush.

  Curious. The Braunsknechts were uncomfortable, too.

  This was the kind of day when the things of the night stayed out and caused mischief.

  The west was too tame. Its major shades, all bound into the features of the land now, slept a deep sleep.

  In the Holy Lands, the Wells of Ihrian either generated or attracted all the Instrumentalities of the Night. In the Holy Lands you were inundated.

  "Hey, Pipe! What the fuck's the matter with you?"

  "Uh? Eh? Oh. Bo. Just lost in my thoughts. We're not in a good place, here."

  Ghort looked him askance. "Just stay calm, don't give them no shit, and you'll be al
l right. They'll probably ask us to sign on with Hansel. Where've you been working, Pipe?"

  Else sighed. He had forgotten to think western. Even in the Holy Lands the Arnhanders employed turncoats recruited from amongst their prisoners. And the Rh?n were even worse. The Rh?n recruited whole tribes to patrol their frontiers.

  "The north country isn't nearly as friendly, Pinkus. They like to sacrifice you to their gods. They burn you or drown you or hang you, or whatever, depending on which god they're bribing."

  "Bribing?"

  "Yes. Their whole way of praying, worshiping, and sacrificing is meant to distract their gods, so they'll leave the people alone."

  "Sounds primitive."

  "It is. But the Grand Marshes are more intimate with the Instrumentalities of the Night than these tame old lands down here."

  "Whistling past the graveyard, eh?”

  Ghort was aware of the shades in the mist around them.

  Else remained confused. This business made no sense. Yet.

  Ghort told him, "You'll catch on. In about a hundred years. It's all politics."

  Else was baffled by politics back home, where the players were fewer and their motives more transparent.

  The Emperor's men were typical professional soldiers. They worked with calm, quiet efficiency, and no passion. Workaday work. If they had to kill somebody, they would, dispassionately, without regrets. Ghort was right. Given no stress, no provocation, no excuse, they would not behave badly.

  The rain stopped in the afternoon. The sky rose.

  The Imperials left the main road. They followed a winding track upward into harsh, precipitous, ice-capped limestone mountains. Those were like nothing Else had seen before. Vegetation was scrubby and the road seldom more than a wide animal track.

  Ghort murmured, "I know where we're at, Pipe. This is the Ownvidian Knot. They're taking a shortcut. Twenty miles of this and we'll come out in the Duchy of Plemenza."