‘A fantastic idea, Empress. And I trust you, but you must admit it sounds a little far-fetched.’ He cleared his throat. ‘No matter this man’s identity, I was trying to teach you something. Take a look down that hall.’ He gestured back the way they came. ‘What do you see?’
‘Lots of Premiers,’ said Aurelia.
‘Don’t be sarcastic, it doesn’t become an Empress.’
Aurelia hung her head. ‘I’m not an Empress anymore.
‘Don’t you see?’ Ennius said. ‘All is not lost. The Premiers are still fighting the Order, even four hundred years later. You talk like Theris being lost is the end, and they’ve won. This is a mere setback in an ongoing war. They haven’t won. Not while there are still unthralled humans willing to fight. Maybe your friend set up the Premiers, maybe he didn’t, but if you are right, he is still fighting after a thousand years. You cannot give up so soon.’
She nodded. His advice was appreciated, and made her feel like she was doing the right thing again. Despite the misgivings of the previous weeks, maybe she was on the right path.
Ennius coughed weakly. When he recovered he said, ‘Listen, you will have a tough time convincing the council. They have become stagnant, conservative and set in their ways. They are unequal to the task of fighting a war. I believe the Medusi took over Theris, the Goddess is real, and that Argentor is their next target, but when I returned, a credible witness, I was not believed. They said I was senile. I do not know what chance you have, but you will do better than I did, I know it.’
Aurelia embraced Ennius again as a bell chimed somewhere in the building, far away considering the sound.
‘They’re ready for you. And that means our other guest has arrived.’
‘Other guest?’
Ennius winced. ‘Yes. I had meant to tell you this, but I got distracted. The audience is with a representative from the Order.’
*
The circular Council of Premiers chamber was as immense in size as it was imposing. Aurelia guessed it stretched most of the way from one side of the great dome to the other; pillars and stained-glass windows lined the walls and looked out in all directions across the city. It gave its occupants the feeling of presiding over the city in a way none of the rooms in the palace complex could; the closest experience Aurelia could think of was standing atop the war balcony at the apex of the palace in Theris, where she was able to see her entire city from one vantage.
The vaulted concave dome above them was decorated with murals detailing the life of Eleutheria and the war against the Overlords, vitally important to the teachings of the Premiers. The Medusi were to be opposed at all costs. Aurelia noticed they glossed over any mention of the prophecies of Velella or the hunting down and killing of Eleutheria’s pet Medusi-witch. Uncomfortable truths. Maybe if they had included it, she mused, they might have foreseen the current situation before it happened.
A cadre of perhaps twenty grey-haired old men acknowledged her as she entered. That was all. Not one stood up, not one offered to shake her hand, or inclined his head in a bow. She was not an Empress here. This was their domain.
‘Dante Tavular doesn’t like you,’ Ennius whispered from behind her. Dante was the acting Grand Premier, husband of the gossip from among Nepheli’s court friends, Felicity Tavular. He was a very average man in height and bearing, and his passive expression was a look of distain. With his head tilted back, he looked down his hooked beak at Aurelia as she walked intentionally round a third of the large circular table that took up most of the chamber. She remembered it was Ennius who once advised her to move in a large room of opponents and see whose eyes follow you. They were the ones most likely to fear you.
‘His mind has been poisoned by his wife,’ she whispered back. ‘If he can’t see reason then he shouldn’t be leading you.’
Ennius made a face as if that were a good point.
Eventually she settled in a chair that was close to equidistant from the entrance and Tavular on the other sides of the table. She did not want to be close to him, but neither did she want to be in range of the representative of the Order. Ennius took the seat beside her.
‘There was an attack this morning,’ she said. ‘I have come here today to beseech you on behalf of Theris, but also the people of Argentor.’
Tavular cut in. ‘We will wait for our guest, thank you. You are here only because they stipulated it.’
‘I have come to petition this council, not entertain the enemy. If I wait, it will be too late.’
‘You will be silent,’ Tavular barked. He gave the impression it was mainly down to her age and gender. He would not be addressed as an equal by a girl child. ‘Harold Vingian has already heard your request and reported it back to me.’
‘You cannot just bark and expect me to be silent, Acting Grand Premier.’ She used his title to spear him. How much real authority did he have? ‘I am the consort of the Marquis of Argentor. You will listen to what I have to say, and before your other guest arrives.’
Tavular, to his credit, didn’t snap back at her. She had won this round.
She stood to address them. ‘There was an attack this morning. Medusi in the city for the second time in three weeks, and both incidents were the first Argentor has seen in perhaps seventy years.’ She looked around the room and saw a nod or two. ‘For some of you, they may even be the first in living memory. I know why this is happening.
‘The Order of the Medousa hatched a brilliant and subtle campaign against Theris over the last thirty years, infiltrating the ancient Houses of the rich and elite. You have seen it in your own city. They promise information that will help destroy one’s enemies, and the cost is just the enslavement of one child, who is then thralled and placed back in the household. I know, it happened to my sister. It happened to your Duke, with his son Crescen. The tentacles of the Order of the Medousa have crept into our lives and we have done nothing to stop them.
‘In Theris, this apathy resulted in the loss of my city. Hundreds of thousands of Medusi swarmed over our walls, and thralled my people. They are now the subjects of a powerful sorceress who leads the Order. Many believe the Medousa is just a figurehead, a fictional Goddess at the top of an organisation run by men, but this is an illusion. I have seen her, my sister has seen her, she is real; an ancient power capable of feats of magic we haven’t seen in this world since the time of the Overlords.
It felt like she was repeating history, like her outburst when she spoke to the ladies of court. She needed to steer her argument directly at the Order and the Premiers themselves. Not the war, and not taking back Theris. Don’t let it be said that I cannot learn from my mistakes, she thought.
‘The Medousa intends to bring her war to Argentor. She will not rest until she has destroyed her old enemies, the Premiers. She cannot leave you as a force able to rally at her back. She must destroy you.
‘Before I entered this chamber to speak to you, I walked the Hall of Grand Ancestry, and I saw something fascinating. You are seated at the pinnacle of an organisation explicitly founded by Thonranius the Grand to combat the rise of the Order of the Medousa. A force of evil. He felt so strongly against them that he founded a private army, the Primes, of only the absolute highest quality fighting men, and an organisation to preach against the evil he saw. He knew one day you would be called on to fight.
‘That day is today, and that fight has come. The Medousa has revealed herself to the world; she has dismantled an Empire that stood for a thousand years from within, taken its capital city and conquered its people. Now she sets her sights on Argentor. You are the only thing left that stands in the way of her thralling first your city and your families, then the world. It is your calling to stop her. It is the entire reason the Premiers exist.’
When she’d finished there was a satisfying hush over the room, as the council digested her words. She hoped she had reached them. Bringing up their entire modus operandi had been spur of the moment, but she was confident it had been the right decision.
She felt she had learnt from her mistakes with Nepheli’s clique.
So, it was a bitter draft to swallow when Tavular stood up and brandished a long pointy digit at her. ‘I don’t care who you think you are. Last of the House of Nectris, fallen Empress, whore to our Marquis. How dare you come into our sanctum, our ancient Citadel that has, as you pointed out, stood against the Order for centuries, and proceed to tell us our history, to judge us? You attempt to shame us into acting against a force we have no credible evidence exists. I hope the council will share my opinion that you are simply an audacious child with the arrogance to ask a previous enemy state to aid them in taking back their city.’
There were murmurings around the chamber, other Premiers who felt similarly.
Aurelia shook her head. She knew she would have trouble, but surely they couldn’t argue against the tenets of their own religion. ‘You cannot just bury your heads in the sand and pretend this isn’t happening. The attacks this morning were just the start, a test of your non-existent defences. The Medousa will be here soon. What will you do when she comes over the crest of the valley at the head of a million Medusi, and you have no plan?’
Tavular sneered, ‘You have had your say, and we reject it.’ A young apprentice bustled into the room and scuttled round to the Acting Grand Premier. He whispered in his ear.
Ennius took the moment to back her up. ‘We have served the royal family in Theris faithfully for a century or more. We installed our last two Grand Premiers there to advise and aid them. Are we simply going to abandon them now when they come with news of an enemy we have known lay in wait for four hundred years? I ask you, brothers, what are we doing if we choose not to support her? Why do we exist if not to fight the Order?’
Tavular dismissed the apprentice and turned to Ennius. ‘You are a retired Premier, Ennius, only here as an indulgence to your prior service. Do not presume that you have a say in this council. Our guest from the Order is here.’
‘Why are we even entertaining this repres-?’ Ennius said, but his words were lost in the noise of chairs scraping against the stone floor as the council stood to greet its guest.
Aurelia should have guessed who it would be.
First a squad of Primes entered, four well-armed men in dark jackets with swords strapped to their backs and belts of small throwing daggers; each one sported one of the new pistols that Duke Lepitern had been so excited to show off when they’d first met.
They were followed by a group of Cephean Guard, the older well-trained Cephean who made up the elite of the Order’s security forces. Each was fully suited in the customary voluminous black skinsuits, billowing out in odd places to make the wearer’s gender impossible to determine; each wore the gold mask and blue visor that Cassandra had worn when she returned to the palace. Above them floated their Medusi, protected within armoured orbs. Aurelia wondered if this could be the very first time live Medusi had actually been inside the Citadel of the Premiers, and in the council chamber no less.
Behind them came a man she had never wanted to meet again. Harling, High Cleric of the Order. Noctiluca’s sycophantic lackey. He looked, if anything, gaunter than ever before and he had always resembled a living skull. Now his cheeks were like ridges, the bags under his eyes led the way into the sunken sockets. He looked ill.
Finally, a second group of Cephean entered, carrying between them a large gilded chest. Harling stepped aside and they dropped it unceremoniously onto the stone table.
Harling didn’t wait for a welcome, taking the stunned silence as his cue. ‘I bring a gift to the council of Premiers, and a warning.’ He spotted Aurelia across the table. ‘Thank you for inviting this one. Last time we spoke Aurelia, you said if we were ever to meet again, you’d impale my head on the gates of Theris.’ He paused, almost extending his neck. ‘No witty comeback? No action? Oh yes, because things have changed a little since then, haven’t they? You had an army behind you then, a city you knew was safe, and I was just an insignificant priest you could talk down to.
‘The change in power dynamic is stark, isn’t it? Now I hold your city in the palm of my hand, your people are thralled, and instead you are the one standing alone, with nothing. I will extend to you the same courtesy you showed me. There will come a time when you are in my power; probably it will come sooner than you think. When Argentor lies in ruins, you will be brought before me, you will be forced to kneel before the Goddess, and when she is done with you, I will take your head and impale it on the wall of my study, the last of the House of Nectris.’
Aurelia sneered. ‘You used to like our little meetings, Harling. You’ve changed.’
Finally, Tavular found his voice. ‘You said you had a gift and a warning. Well?’
‘The warning is simply this.’ Harling was relishing this, Aurelia could see. ‘The Medousa has set her sights on Argentor. Your city will be the next to fall to the Goddess. Make whatever preparations you must, for we will not take your city through subterfuge as with Theris. The Goddess wants to demonstrate her strength. Know that every last one of you will experience the sublime gift she has to give; you will all be thralled. Your crusty old sect will be dismantled, your Primes will not stand against us. We will crush you.’ He took a deep breath, savouring the moment. ‘Lastly, the gift. But let it also serve as a warning of the truth I have told you.’
Harling gestured to the trunk bearers, who stepped forward. Each took hold of one edge of the large chest and heaved, hauling it over. The lid was tipped off and smashed, the contents spilt across the table; copious amounts of thick, clotted and congealed blood flowed out, followed by the chopped and sliced up pieces of a male adult’s body. Aurelia saw a leg severed at knee and ankle, tumble out and splash one Premier, a piece of an arm slide through the muck, the palm of a hand with each finger removed, a detached head slick with a coating of blood. It rolled over until the face of the victim looked at her in a rictus of pain, his throat raggedly cut.
More than one of the Premiers shrieked in horror. One fainted in his seat. All of them bar him surged to their feet so as to avoid the blood that washed over the table’s edges.
‘Behold,’ said Harling gleefully, ‘your Grand Premier, Verismuss.’
Chapter Twenty Three
Totelun
Clinging to the sheer rock, for a second Totelun looked down. Bad idea. The cliff-face swept away underneath him, the rope whipping against the escarpment, Cassandra’s visor-covered gaze meeting his, her hair flowing round her face in the wind, and the mountain dropping away into empty air. The height they had achieved reminded him of his childhood. The Shamans had said the rolling terrain so far below was nothing but an illusion. Now he knew otherwise, he had been there. He shivered, not sure if it was cold or adrenaline. The air was getting thin here, also more like he remembered it; it was strange that only now he had attained it again did he realise how much he had longed for it.
The wind assaulted him, trying once again to dislodge him from the mountainside. He huddled into the rock, bracing until the flurry passed. When he could look up again, his view was obscured by the closest of the Floating Islands. It was so close he could almost touch it. He could smell it; the scent of soil and lush vegetation was not coming from the frozen mountain.
He beckoned for Cassandra to hurry. Once they reached the top of the ridge, it would just be a short run, and then they could jump to the island. Just a running leap. Over a drop of some ten thousand feet. He pulled himself up over the edge, and then turned to help Cassandra up. Once her arms were over the lip, she waved her hand, telling him to go, she would be fine. Totelun extricated himself from the rope and ran. The island approached ahead of him. His footfalls punched through the snow. He looked back, Cassandra was running too, closing on him and tearing up the incline.
A great crunch sounded, knocking Totelun off his feet, tumbling into the snow. He was back on his feet in a moment, searching for the cause. Ahead, rocks had dislodged and were dropping down the mountainside. The Island had hit the
mountain! Just a scratch as it went past, but it had caused shakes all across the summit.
There was no time to waste. He could see the Island, the trees and grasslands in front of him, a forest and a stream, a little footpath, maybe leading to a village if he followed it. From there he could get word to his family. All it would take was a running jump. He set his feet and sprinted.
But something caught his attention and he pulled up before the leap. There was snow rolling down the mountain, dislodged by the impact. Wait, where was Cassandra?
Then he saw her, arms wrapped round a rock, clinging for dear life as the snow crashed past her, cresting the rock like a storm wave. The scrape had knocked him off his feet, but it had also started an avalanche, and Cassandra was still down there. She wouldn’t be able to hold on long.
For one heavy moment Totelun took in the Island floating slowly past. If I’m fast I could make it. He could come back, there was still time. But in his heart he knew there wasn’t. If he ran down to Cassandra, he would miss his chance. She was there in his heart just the same as his family, and his home. Just as important.
He shouted a terrible curse to the mountain and ran back the way he’d come, falling, tumbling, sliding on his backside to get down to where Cassandra still clung. He didn’t need the gift of foresight to see her losing her grip, slipping, and plummeting away down the side of the mountain. Sliding with the rolling snow as he ran, he reached the rock she clung to, grabbed the small amount of slack rope left and pulled. He looped it into his belt and tied a knot. Even if she lost her grip, she was still attached to the rope. Snow smashed into him, knocking him off his feet. It continued to flow past, disappearing off the side into the abyss. Now he was slipping too. Great rescue job, he thought. Now we’re both going to die.
He slid right to the edge, further than Cassandra who was now doing better than him. As his feet touched the lip, he teetered, and a great clod of snow and ice hit him and knocked him off. He fell, saw the ice cliff go past that they had been climbing just a few minutes earlier. He suddenly felt the rope go slack – she had let go as well.
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 32