Anthrom wasn’t aware of how long he stood there staring. He felt a hand on his shoulder and gulped. It was Harling.
*
When Harling kicked open the door and pushed Anthrom into the throne room, Noctiluca was busy speaking with one of the older Cepheans, one of the ones that relayed messages to her spies across the cities of the continent. She spoke to them as if to the Cephean that was miles away.
Advise them to await my instructions. Make no move at this time. I want them to fall much further than this. And above all else, maintain cover.
Harling marched Anthrom down the long approach to the throne, one hand digging into his injured shoulder painfully, driving him forward. Noctiluca dismissed the Cephean, who bowed and then left, gliding past Anthrom. Its gold mask and blue visor revealed nothing.
Anthrom lost his footing as Harling threw him at the base of Noctiluca’s throne.
‘I found Anthrom in my laboratory. He must have been spying on us.’
You are dismissed. I already told you to leave.
Harling scowled, but he did as he was told.
She commanded Anthrom to stand, but once Harling had gone, her voice inside his head softened. Please, Anthrom. I told you never to spy on me. Come to me with your questions, your thoughts.
He had been caught, and the only real play was honesty. He’d watched what she did to Harling and had no intention of lying.
‘I spy on everyone.’
Not on me, not any more. She stretched her fingers, clasped the throne rests. Tell me Anthrom, what do you want?
‘What do you mean?’
From life, from me.
Anthrom still didn’t know what to say, but power was on his mind after gazing at the Medusi. ‘I want more, Noctiluca.’
More? she said. What does more look like, Anthrom?
She was as close to an Overlord as it was possible to get. And he need only ask. Isn’t that what she had said before? Put aside his revulsion and ask.
‘I want to be more important to you than your Cepheans in the other room. I want to be more useful than the spies you depend on across your Empire. I want you to give me the responsibility, the missions that you give Harling. He is old and clearly no longer has the passion and faith needed. He wants out. I want in.’
You know about the Medusi I have been preparing for you.
He nodded. ‘I do.’
And you don’t desire the power that it will give you?
It was a trap. ‘I desire that more than anything,’ he said. ‘But not at the cost of everything else. I want that power, but I want to use it in service to you.’ He would be a fool to pass up the opportunity, he told himself. But still a small part of him remembered the life’s blood pouring from Verismuss’ opened throat, turning his hands red. He told himself he was making a choice to serve her, but the alternative, he knew, was death.
She was coaxing him to make a pact with a demon.
What do you want, Prince Anthrom?
‘I want power.’
She stood, and then knelt down in front of him. She was so tall that even when she knelt she towered over him. So impatient. But that greed is what I want. I have one more trial for you, Anthrom. A test of your resolve. Then we will know you are truly ready for this gift.
‘When?’
Soon Anthrom, soon. He could hear an echo of the words she had said to Harling, that weasel. But now said to him. Had he taken a step too far? No, one more test, she said. He had one more chance to get out of this. When the High Cleric returns.
Chapter Twenty One
Nausithorn
Naus looked over his shoulder; the ruined city of Kabranth was now all but gone, shrouded by the shadows of the mountainside receding slowly behind each day. Sparse and sickly woodlands stretched much of the way back to the mountains, bleached white by the intense sun, but they had left even those behind now. Ahead lay the Terracon Steppe, a broad expanse of grasslands and rolling plains for as far as the eye could see and further beyond the horizon, with the occasional stunted rock formation pocking the landscape. Stretching from the edge of the Cartracian mountain range east for around five hundred miles, in the centre it could almost be called desert. Shelter was a commodity they would find in very short supply. As Naus surveyed the terrain he spotted only spiky dead tree trunks; this far out on their own, most had been struck by lightning at one point or another and now clasped at the sky with their charred innards exposed.
Their destination was still some weeks away; the Temple of the Order of the Medousa lay in the cleft of the largest rock formation for a hundred miles. The rocky mountain edge was visible on the horizon. At its base lay the frontier town of Medaquen, and hidden in the mountains, the Temple.
There was no other way but straight across the barren steppe.
‘It is so far away,’ said Crescen. He stood abreast with Naus, hand over his visor, gazing in the same direction. He had relinquished the mask, but not the visor, complaining that bright light pained his eyes, just like Cassandra had. There was nowhere Naus knew with more bright light, except maybe the real deserts even further east outside the bounds of the Empire, but only a very well-travelled nomad would know such things, and he kept it to himself. ‘It will take us weeks.’
‘Then it'll take us weeks,’ Naus said unhelpfully. ‘It’ll take us even longer if you keep stopping to gawk at it. You’re not being put off, are you?’
In the stark sunlight Crescen’s appearance was more notable; he sported the same grey skin as Cassandra, though he tended to cover it up as much as he could with the same strange black billowing suit that the majority of Cephean wore. ‘You will cook in that thing where we’re going,’ Naus had told him a few hours out of the deadwoods. Crescen had untied the cords that bunched the fabric at his wrists and calves and let it float free, creating billowing sleeves and trousers that as a seasoned nomad, Naus could appreciate would keep him cool. It was just a shame about the black fabric.
Crescen shook his head, setting off again. ‘Not put off, just more realistic all of a sudden.’
Naus joined him. They walked at a brisk pace, the ground flat and even. ‘There is plenty that you should be concerned with, beyond the time it will take’ he said. ‘These are dangerous lands. There’s many possible things that could go wrong.’
‘And I suppose you are going to enlighten me?’
‘Enlighten a religious man?’ Naus smiled. ‘Maybe it’s for the best.’ He saw no further argument and began. ‘There will be Medusi, probably a lot of them.’
Crescen scoffed. ‘Medusi do not concern me.’
‘Yes, well they concern me. And I’m not getting thralled just so that I can walk through them peacefully. We avoid them if we come across them.’
Crescen’s own Medusi still resided in its armoured shell. He argued that it kept the creature safe and out of the sun, which was true.
‘There will be horse lords, and their throngs of riders,’ Naus continued. ‘Whatever’s left of the tribes will have split into factions led by the strongest and most ruthless who didn’t join the march on Theris. There’s no shelter out there and they have horses. We don’t. They could just run us down, take us for slaves, sell us to a caravan going through the Northern wastes. Westlanders’d pay a lot for a slave Cephean, I’d wager.’ He eyed Crescen, and was gratified to see the disconcerted frown on his naive face. ‘And that’s if we don’t die from exposure to the elements, heat exhaustion, running out of water or food, or any other essential supplies.’
‘You’re a thoroughly disagreeable old man, aren’t you?’
‘People have said that of me, it’s true.’ Many times, thought Naus.
They lapsed into silence for a mile or so. It wasn’t that Naus couldn’t handle silence, but he did have a number of things he wanted to find out about Crescen before they reached Medaquen and it was too late.
‘So the Duke’s son, what does that make you?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’
&nb
sp; ‘What title? An Earl, a baron?’
‘Oh. A Marquis, I suppose, but technically that title has settled on my brother, Faibryn. He will be next in line to the throne. I have renounced all titles.’ Crescen’s white blond hair, on show now with his hood down, spoke to his noble lineage.
‘Is that just because of being a Cephean?’
‘Yes and no. That is part of it, but it is also due to my exile. When one is banished, one does not retain one’s title.’
Here we go, he thought. ‘You were banished?’
Crescen looked at him, pursing his lips. The kid could be a bit prickly, a lot more so than Totelun.
‘Look,’ said Naus. ‘It’s going to come out at some point. Might as well tell me now while you’re in control rather than slur the whole sorry mess into your cups in some tavern.’
‘I don’t drink.’
‘A noble who doesn’t drink. Will the wonders never cease?’
‘Not since this anyway.’ Crescen pointed to the Medusi blimp above him.
Naus just looked at him, licked his teeth behind his lips.
The thrall looked away. ‘Fine. My father, the Duke of Argentor, exiled me from the city. He was the one who sold me to the Order of the Medousa in the first place, but at the first sign the war was over he disowned me. His fear for his position was too great.’
‘The people of Argentor used to accept thralls,’ said Naus. ‘City used to have watcher temple on every corner.’
‘Not anymore. It has become almost as conservative as Theris. Once father realised the Order had won there, he retreated for home.’ Naus thought of the train of soldiers and army followers that Aurelia had made for when he had left her to go back for Totelun. ‘He was injured, but I expect he is okay by now. He told me I was no longer welcome in Argentor. That I could not return with the army.’
Aurelia and Chrysaora must have almost crossed paths with Crescen and not known it. Totelun and Cassandra would have also, just some time later, and Naus himself had followed in Crescen’s footsteps for a week or two, before catching up with him. It was a small world sometimes. Naus wondered, where Totelun was now? Was he up the mountain? Had he made it to the Floating Islands yet?
Naus looked up and back; the Islands were visible high in the sky. They had swung far over him and were now converging on the peak of Cartracia. Maybe there was some truth to Totelun’s cellmate’s words after all. Never trust the word of an assassin, he chided. That was one to live by. I should know.
‘Why not Theris then?’ Naus asked. ‘The Order are there.’
‘How much do you know of the Order?’ Crescen asked.
‘Enough. I am an old man, Crescen, older than you know, and I have been around the world more than once and seen a great many things. I know about your Goddess, your Temple, I know the purpose of a Cephean.’ He felt none of this compromised him; bards were notoriously well-travelled.
Crescen seemed to accept it. ‘I cannot travel to Theris. I am unwelcome there also.’ He sighed and continued without Naus’ prompting. ‘When my father exiled me, he made me useless to my Goddess. What good is a Cephean if they are unable to do the work they are meant to do?’ Naus knew what he meant; he was now unable to spy on his father’s doings in court, or send word to the Medousa, but the accepted reason was to advise the client in matters of war and battle. ‘I have failed her, and failures are not welcomed back. But she also will not abandon me completely. Not like father. She has ordered me back to the Temple, where I will live out my days as a scholar in the libraries. Forever denied her love.’
Again silence prevailed for a time.
Naus began to wonder about Aurelia. Had she made it to Argentor? Was she even now dealing with the Duke, and the Premiers, and this boy’s brother, Faibryn? She had asked him to come with her, to act as her advisor after her Verismuss turned out to be a backstabbing traitor, but he had denied her, claiming as he always did, that he was unfit for court life, court politics and courtly manners. He would have offended someone in moments.
‘What about you?’ said Crescen.
‘What about me?’
‘What is your story?’
Now be careful, he thought. Nothing that could be overheard by the other Cephean or that might identify him to the Medousa. ‘I think I told you already. I am a travelling bard, I tell entertaining stories for coin. People eventually get bored of my stories and stop giving coin to hear them, and I move on to the next town.’
‘Very few towns in these parts,’ Crescen commented.
‘An astute observation, lad. Seeing as we are in the middle of horse country, and the last city was a ruin. It’s true this leg of the journey is a little dry, but with Theris occupied and Argentor coming down from war, I felt the time had come to comb the Eastern townships again. But first you have to get there.’ The lies were just rolling off his tongue.
‘How long have you been a bard?’
‘Oh, going on fifty years.’
‘Where did you start?’
‘Back in Theris, but I’ve been round the world twice.’
‘How come I’ve never heard of you?’
‘You don’t strike me as the type that frequents dangerous port bars and taverns much. I’m not one to play to nobles – too many educated hecklers think they know the story better than I do. And what’s with all the questions? Trying to keep me on my toes?’
‘Testing you,’ Crescen said, with a new confidence. ‘Arcturus, wasn’t it? Same Arcturus who told tall tales in Brynonia about a baron’s daughter, got himself ran out of town by an angry mob?’
It was a trick question. Without hesitation, Naus said, ‘Seeing as that happened possibly two hundred years ago, I’d say it was another of us. I come from a long line of Arcturus’, it’s kind of our brand. My grandfather used to tell that story as if maybe his own grandfather had been the one involved.’ Maybe he did need another name after all; that had been him, and the tales about the baron’s daughter were all true. He should know.
The boy was completely different when he was being coached on what to say by someone else. A Cleric somewhere or another Cephean was feeding him questions, must have looked up the reference to another Arcturus. Crescen was communicating with someone to test his claims.
‘You said you were handy with a blade,’ the boy asked.
‘Don’t want to test that one, do you? I might end up slicing a nipple off.’
‘No, but what need does a bard have with learning swordsmanship?’
‘I really hope I don’t have to demonstrate.’
Crescen let the matter slide; apparently his handler was satisfied for the moment. Naus got the impression he was still going to have to prove his credentials by telling an entertaining story at some point soon, but for now they travelled on without a further word.
The next day stretched long and dull, and hot. Nights on the plains were cool and comfortable, but the noon day sun beat down on them and had Naus sweating in his robes. He wasn’t about to take them off and then have to answer the inevitable raft of questions about his Medusi scars. There were some things you just avoided if you could.
Early evening, they came to the top of a long shallow ridge in the land, like a fold in an enormous blanket; on the other side stretched a thick carpet of Medusi, a bloom similar in size to the ones that had chased Naus and Totelun across the eastern edge of these same plains.
He was reminded of the line in the prophecy.
When dark creatures blot out the sun.
He had told Totelun many times not to take the prophecy literally – it was probably created with plenty of poetic license – but he couldn’t deny his eyes; the numbers of Medusi were becoming a problem. They were breeding exponentially, each one begetting a dozen polyps in every unwary animal, or unfortunate human host it came across. Some species didn’t even need hosts. Just a fetid swamp. A dozen Ephyrae became a dozen dozen, when the next cycle was complete, and so on. The numbers soon went far beyond his abilities with mathematica, but
it was millions in just a few generations. And they weren’t dying off; many thousands, maybe tens of thousands had thralled the population of perhaps the largest city on the continent. They seemed to cover much of the plain, and he knew many thousands more were now breeding in the Theris basin.
‘We might need to go around this,’ he said, understating the problem.
Was Noctiluca somehow in control of them all, rallying them to her cause? Was she sending them somewhere, Argentor perhaps, the next site of her drive to thrall the world? Were they breeding like this in order to equal the number of humans, to fulfil her dark intentions?
‘You do.’
‘You’re going to go through the middle, are you?’
‘I’ll go on without you,’ Crescen said. ‘I don’t need your help. I was doing just fine before you showed up.’
‘Okay sure, you go ahead,’ said Naus. He wasn’t about to beg the boy to stop, or to go with him. If he was reckless enough to go through the Medusi and end up on his own, well that was his choice.
Naus watched for a minute as Crescen tentatively, then with increasing bravery, began to traverse the swarm of Medusi.
Naus shook his head and set off north instead. Thankfully, the bloom was mostly to the south, and going around wouldn’t be impossible, just time consuming.
It was almost a full day by the time Naus had crested the edge of the expanse of Medusi, killing a score for good measure, and making sure to take the tiny crystals. He had a full pouch now, like any good hunter. Some hours after he had started back in the eastern direction again, he happened upon Crescen’s trail. It wasn’t hard to find. Scuffs were visible for some time in a land without much rain, the trodden grass less so, but still apparent for some hours after its assailant had gone by.
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 30