The bartender set a mug of frothy beer down on the dirty bar top.
Naus looked at him again. The only Therian native he’d seen all day, and by that he meant the only one not thralled. How had the man survived this long without being thralled?
‘I’m looking for someone,’ he said putting his hand palm down on the wood of the bar.
‘Only thing you’ll find here is death,’ said the young man. He had a dishrag over one shoulder, three day stubble in patches on his cheeks. His eyes were sallow caves, with a furtive wild animal in their depths.
That was not the answer Naus had expected. It wasn’t a threat, just the man’s opinion of an unthralled old timer’s chances in this changed city. He would know, Naus thought.
He moved his hand to the side, revealing the coins beneath.
‘Your money is meaningless here.’
‘I’m looking for rumours from the palace. A boy was there. I’ve heard he killed King Stauros.’
The man’s eyes widened. ‘Keep your voice down.’ He glanced at the other patrons in the small space. No one seemed to have reacted; no eyes faced them, but a number of ears did. ‘Talk like that will get you knifed. Can’t you see the number of horsemen in the city?’
The bartender was shaking his head. Naus supposed he was right to be careful. He was asking to find the boy who had killed the King, when almost everyone here would gut him for it. The only people who wouldn’t were native Therians, unthralled, or any rebels. He hadn’t found any yet.
‘I’ve never been afraid of a fight,’ said Naus, trying to hint without incriminating. The man could sell him out, and every attempt he made was a gamble.
‘Maybe you should be, old man like you.’
Naus smiled. ‘Don’t concern yourself with me, friend. I can handle myself. Have you heard anything?’
‘It’s not worth my life,’ he said, suddenly looking to the window.
Naus followed his gaze. Clerics.
There were very few roaming Medusi left in the city, the vast majority had found hosts, thralled them and were now part of the strange new society. After the night and a day of bloodletting and violence that had handed the city over to the Order of the Medousa, the rest of the bloom had slowly drifted away and now floated on the air currents beyond the wall to the north and west. The harbour was choked with the bodies of Medusi dumped into the waters. Naus had been there early on the second day, and had seen the strange shimmering frogspawn.
Instead of Medusi, the threat three days later came in the form of Clerics. The slave-drivers of the Order were obvious in their stark black robe-like uniforms, the priests of a new age. There was one nearby, creating an invisible bubble around himself as people crossed out of his path.
He has heading here.
If you had half a functioning brain it was easy to exist in the city without getting found. It really was. With the amount of surviving mercenaries, horsemen, and thralls about, if you carried yourself right you could blend in. Naus had been carefully avoiding Clerics for the last day or two in the city. He hadn’t let himself be cornered. Until now.
Just ahead of the Cleric and his retinue, a young woman with mousy brown hair slipped silently into the bar and slid into a booth near the back where it was dark. She faced away from the entrance hunched low in her seat.
Naus turned back and hid his face. The bartender seemed to catch the woman’s eye and then he was making himself look busy. He suddenly put his hand over the coins Naus had left. ‘If you are serious about finding the boy who killed King Stauros, you need to speak to that woman, but it’s probably too late.’ The coins were gone when he moved his hand.
‘What, why?’
He didn’t get an answer.
The door opened behind Naus with the tinkle of an old bell that had seen better days, and the bartender was immediately looking over his shoulder. The bell’s chime echoed into a new and deafening silence as every patron in the bar caught sight of the newcomer.
The Cleric was a young man, maybe not yet thirty, clean shaven. His hair was pulled into a high topknot but the sides were shaved. He wore a black robe of such dense material that it swallowed all light; the robe hid his hands, and an unused hood laid spread against his shoulders.
The man was followed in by two large faceless Cephean Guard, their intricate gold masks revealing nothing, small Cephea Medusi floating above them. They wore even more disturbing almost skin-tight black suits that billowed in strange places. Naus could see by the reaction of the city-folk they had learned quickly to fear such as these. The Cephean were far worse than the wild or common Medusi that had thralled most of the populace; bio-engineered by the Order itself, all Cephea could hear what their hosts heard, and transmit it back to the rest of the shared hive-mind. It made Cephean guard incredible spies, and meant anything said here right now could be heard by the Order’s leadership, and possibly the Sorceress herself. During the war the Order had thralled the children of powerful families with Cephea in order to insert spies into the highest echelons of power; in return they offered the secrets of their clients’ enemies. The fall of the city and the war that preceded it were in no small part due to the Cephean.
The Cleric smiled coldly to the room at large. ‘I am but a humble Cleric, my name is meaningless. But I come to you with a message. Rejoice, all that hear these words. The Goddess arrives in Theris in the coming days.’ His grin was predatory in Naus’ humble opinion. ‘The Medousa will reveal herself to the world. After aeons spent in obscurity, Theris is to be the site of her ascendance.
‘The world we know is coming to an end. We live lives of debauchery and alienation from nature, from our true destiny. Her coming heralds the destruction of our world and a return to what nature intended. We will re-enter the womb of the mother of Arceth. The Medusi blooms proclaim the return of the Queen of the Night, she who will thrall the world. She will return us to our primal state, joined with the Medusi from which we were split during the Great Division. The Overlords so many venerate were the ones that split us from our true forms. It is time to become one again.
‘When darkness blots out the sun, the time of deliverance will be at hand.’
Naus had heard a few variations on this theme now, hiding when he witnessed Clerics preaching to large groups in the streets. Their message was an incredible claim, something he had been trying for centuries to determine. The purpose of the Order. For many years he had tried and failed to join their ranks, to penetrate into their Temple in the heart of Terracon and ascertain if the Goddess was real, let alone what she wanted.
Now the Order had revealed itself, and they were losing no time preaching their warped message to the people of the world. Naus had never had anything much against thralls; it was a lifestyle choice, and in some lucky cases gave access to helpful skills and kinds of magic. But it was at the individual’s choice.
The cult of the Medousa, because he refused to legitimise it, wanted what their Goddess wanted – to thrall everyone, man, woman and child, regardless of their wishes on the matter. It was a subjugation of the rights of everyone in this city, and if it was allowed to continue, the world at large.
If their new sermons were to be believed, they thought they were returning mankind to some long forgotten utopian existence when humanity and Medusi had been one single organism. Most of the rest of it was just words on the wind; complicated names and titles for their goddess, flotsam about returning to natural states and re-entering the womb.
What really intrigued him was finding out how much of it was true? The Order knew about the prophecies laid down by Velella, a Medusi witch who had existed over a thousand years ago, back when Eleutheria founded the city of Theris. Her prophecies spoke of a saviour who would fall from the sky, and then travel the world collecting allies to fight and destroy the Medusi. Naus was convinced that saviour was Totelun.
When you knew the saviour of the world, you had to do everything in your power to help.
What the prophecies never s
aid, as Totelun enjoyed pointing out, was how to go about destroying all Medusi. Naus needed information in order to help his friend succeed, but how to get it and where? There was no help to be found in the Cleric’s garbled nonsense.
But if there is one benefit of the Clerics being in Theris in such force, it’s that there'll be far less of them at their temple.
The Cleric had stopped talking and begun stalking the small barroom. He peered at patrons thralled and unthralled alike, but he lingered on those who were not, those who had not yet embraced the call. His gaze took in the bartender and then Naus sitting at the bar. He stopped, scowling at Naus, but with interest rather than malice.
Oh boy, thought Naus. Here we go.
‘You’re not from around here, are you?’
Naus smiled. ‘I could say the same about you.’ None of the Order were Therians as far as he could see; they seemed to be from all over. He found that old men got away with saying a lot more truth than most. He played to it, trying to show he had nothing to hide.
‘The Order is here by right of conquest. We won the recent war, you may have noticed.’
‘I have noticed a lot more thralls in Theris recently,’ Naus nodded.
The Cleric pressed his hands together. ‘Such a great blessing Theris has experienced these last few days. Its people have awakened to their destiny and their Goddess. The Order is here to guide the stragglers to the light.’
It was always hard to engage with the religious. ‘I just figured Theris had got over their prejudices and made it legal. It’s legal where I’m from.’
‘And where is that?’
‘Oh here and there. I’m well-travelled. But I never encountered the Order until now. Where have you been?’
The Cleric was not to be drawn away. ‘We’ve always been here, waiting for the right time to finally share the Goddess with the world. We have been in the houses of the nobility for a generation or so.’
Naus tried to ask another question, but the Cleric cut in.
‘What brings you to Theris, at such an auspicious time?’
Part of him knew he risked being found out, but another part refused to let the man’s attentions fall on anyone else. Least of all the woman hiding at the back.
If his story wasn’t good enough, if this Cleric or his Cephean got suspicious, or just took a disliking to him, he could be killed or thralled on a whim.
‘That depends on your point of view. Some might say it was inauspicious considering the war.’
The Cleric wasn’t amused this time. ‘Who are you? Answer me.’
Naus thought fast, falling back on an old persona he’d used and perfected many times before. He flashed the bartender a look, thinking this story would lose him his credibility.
‘My name is Arcturus. I am a storyteller by trade. I regaled the camp followers and mercenaries of King Isingr’s army on their way here from Terracon. Now I tell tall tales for coin in the city.’
‘A person who lies for money.’
Not so very different from your job, Naus thought. ‘A bard.’
‘What kinds of stories?’
‘Epics. Poems of the deeds of great heroes of legend. Tales of the Overlords, of Eleutheria, of the time of magic and prophecy.’
The Cleric nodded. ‘More lies. You will replace them with tales of the Goddess.’ He paused, considering Naus’ face. ‘Tell me a story then, Bard,’ he said eventually.
‘What story would you have me tell? I know none of your Goddess.’
‘You will need to remedy that. For now, your choice.’
‘One of my favourites is how the first Empress Eleutheria founded this very city, and now I am here, I get to tell it more often.’
‘That will do.’ He waved his hand dismissively.
Naus cleared his throat with the drink on the bar and began. ‘It begins like many good stories on a dark night a thousand years ago. Eleutheria was the most dangerous and bloodthirsty warlord the steppes of Terracon had ever known, thirstier even than King Isingr. She had already ridden from east to west, and from north to south, attacking the cities of the Overlords one after another, then moving on. Each time she came for them, the Overlords eluded her, gathering their own power in the east.
‘On one dark night it rained as if the Celestials themselves meant Arceth to flood. Soaked to the skin, Eleutheria trudged through the murk of a swamp, followed by her loyal retainers and Velella, the Medusi witch who had visions of the future. She and her followers had no fixed home, no city to call their own, and it was a night like this, shivering and cold, that set her men to grumbling.
‘Eleutheria heard their moans, and thought them weak and pathetic. But she wasn’t hardened to any suggestion. She had begun to see the merits of a single strategic position to put down the foundations of her dynasty. She needed a city, from which to rule the Empire she intended to found. Now she just needed to find the site.
‘She sent scouts out to all reaches of the-’
‘That’s enough,’ said the Cleric. ‘I don't have time for this.’
‘Maybe some other day?’ Naus tried.
‘Maybe not. You will learn the tales of the Goddess instead. There will be temples across this city in the coming weeks. Report to them for instruction.’
Naus figured he was out of harm’s way. He’d managed to turn the conversation from an interrogation into a kind of attempt to convince a difficult old man, and from there the story had diffused the situation. It was human nature to get involved in a story, let it drag you in. If the Cleric did turn even now, Naus would have to cut him down, and then the two Cepheans. The whole Cephean network would know immediately, his cover would be blown. There was no hiding it, if it came to that.
The Cleric stepped away, but then turned back. ‘Why are you not thralled, Arcturus of here and there?’
It’s not over yet, he thought.
‘Until your speech a moment ago, it was a matter of choice,’ Naus said. ‘I have never wanted to. Once you’re thralled, that’s it. You can’t take it back. And I never wanted to make that final decision.’ This wasn’t strictly true. He’d been thralled, three times in fact. And unthralled again in horrendous circumstances he shuddered to remember. He didn’t recall much of his thousand years, it all became a blur after so much time, especially the earliest years, but the times he was separated from a Medusi, he remembered them all right.
‘It is still a choice,’ said the Cleric. ‘But it means so much more now.’ He came very close, so that Naus could see the pores in his nose, smell the decay on his breath. Smell the danger. ‘We all must choose a side in the coming war.’
‘And what war is that?’
His canines flashed. ‘The war for this world, of course. The thralled are the new masters, they are the return to the primal form. The war for this world will be a holy war, those who have embraced the past and taken us into the future, versus those who cannot adapt and choose to cling to their frail human bodies.’ He pinched Naus’ arm to emphasise his point. He was untouchable and he knew it. The sick doctrine left a foul taste on the air that made Naus want to retch.
The Cleric backed away a step. It was possible he was about to leave, but Naus couldn’t help himself. ‘Why are you not thralled?’ he asked.
The Cleric rounded on him, puffed up and affronted. ‘You dare to question me? I could have you cut down where you sit.’
‘I apologise.’ Naus showed his hands. ‘Old storytellers like me can let our mouths run away from us.’
‘The Clerics of the Order will be the last to be thralled. We are the guides, lighting the way to ascension. We cannot partake ourselves until all are thralled.’
The Cleric’s eyes darted away. Movement behind Naus. It was the woman in the dark corner; she sat back abruptly drawing further attention to herself. He tried another question, but the Cleric was already stalking over to her.
Naus couldn’t quite hear what was said; the Cleric spoke in a low tone only the woman could hear. After a momen
t she looked at him, big open eyes, like she was really seeing him for the first time. Naus was sure she was innocent of whatever he accused her of. Suddenly she was moving, trying to escape. She launched over the booth’s barrier, past the Cleric and then past Naus, but there was nowhere else to go; one of the Cephean thralls scooped her up, arms crossed over her chest, her legs cycling in the air. She shouted and screeched at them.
‘I haven’t done anything! Get off me!’
The second thrall slapped her hard, knocking her head about and she quieted. Then they dragged her, still kicking and struggling, out of the bar.
The Cleric stepped past Naus and the bartender.
‘The guilty always run,’ he said. ‘Do me a favour, give up the storytelling, you have no talent for it.’
He walked away, following the Cepheans and the woman who Naus had wanted to speak to. Better her than me, was the first thought that came to mind. Keeping quiet and remaining incommunicado was the best way to help Totelun right now. Then he realised what he was doing; trying to convince himself that not going after the woman who might have heard about Totelun, was the best thing for Totelun.
He didn’t want to leave her to be thralled, but if he went after her he would be revealing himself, possibly ruining his mission. If he didn’t, he could be letting his only lead disappear into the Order’s clutches.
‘Why that woman?’ he asked the bartender, all composure gone.
‘She works in the palace.’
Naus was up out of his chair before the bartender had finished. He couldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t let her be thralled. He knew how difficult it was to remove one.
Outside in the street, the day was slowing ebbing like a dying fire. The Cleric, his Cephean entourage and the struggling woman were only fifty yards away on the other side of a crossroads.
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 6