Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2)

by Toby Andersen

  Aurelia turned to Faibryn and noticed a mischievous glint in his eye. ‘The main reason though,’ he said, ‘is that they say that Andromeda is where the Medusi came from.’

  *

  When they returned to the palace, they were greeted by a sombre chill. Courtiers lining the concourse watched Faibryn furtively, before glancing away. For Aurelia they stared with outright suspicion, hostility; as they reached the grand staircase, she swore she heard a muttered, ‘witch’. What had Nepheli done? was Aurelia’s first thought, followed by, or is it something worse?

  ‘Come on,’ said Faibryn, sensing the mood also. ‘Let’s find Terietta.’ His tone told her to follow him. She’d never wanted to find Terietta before, but she supposed there was a first time for everything. If anyone knew what was going on it would be the major-domo.

  Instead, Terietta found them. ‘Faibryn, Faibryn, oh thank the Overlords I found you.’ She was frantic, her eyes red rimmed and manic.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said, just as clueless as Aurelia.

  ‘I…well…’ she tried, too upset to speak. ‘Oh, come with me. I can’t.’

  They followed her past Aurelia’s rooms, where Chrysaora was leaning with feigned disinterest against the door to the suite, arms crossed. Aurelia caught her eye and tilted her head for her to follow them.

  When Terietta turned down the corridor to the Duke’s rooms, Aurelia feared the worst. She looked to Faibryn, and his face said it all, confused trepidation and slight fear. The same.

  The guards bowed slowly, but as the door opened, Terietta stopped.

  ‘Not her,’ she said, ‘she is not welcome here.’

  Aurelia sighed and glanced back at Chrysaora.

  ‘No, you.’ Terietta pointed at Aurelia.

  ‘Teri, please,’ said Faibryn. ‘Aurelia is my betrothed now.’

  ‘It’s not right,’ she said, a little louder. Aurelia tried to think of her as protective rather than just deliberately vindictive. ‘She shouldn’t see him like this.’

  ‘Just let us in,’ said Faibryn.

  ‘I can wait,’ Aurelia offered.

  ‘No, you shouldn’t have-’

  ‘Its fine.’

  Faibryn took Aurelia by the shoulders, looked right at her. ‘Please, don’t make me face this alone.’ Aurelia almost cried right there. He seemed so lost. He turned to Terietta. ‘Don’t force me to leave her here. She is my support.’

  ‘She does not deserve you,’ said Terietta, biting her lip. But she moved aside.

  The room was crowded with more courtiers, all sombre and quiet. They lined the large bedroom and made it feel close and small. As they realised who had joined them, the ones nearest the bed parted and let Faibryn through. Some bowed, but most watched them in stunned silence. Aurelia could see one or two of the women she knew from court, but she couldn’t find Nepheli.

  Duke Lepitern lay on the same divan bed as he had when Aurelia had last spoken to him all those weeks ago. His eyes were shut and his emaciated body seemed weak and frail. He did not move when they approached, didn’t react when Faibryn knelt and took his small leathery hand in his.

  ‘It’s cold,’ he said, turning to Aurelia.

  Duke Lepitern was dead.

  ‘He expired just an hour ago,’ said Terietta, stifling her own tears now. ‘I’ve been trying to find you ever since. I looked everywhere.’ Aurelia felt suddenly guilty. They’d been up on the north gatehouse, when Faibryn’s father had passed away. She had stopped him being here.

  Faibryn didn’t react. He just stared sightlessly at his father’s body, like he was stunned, under a spell. It was strange, but understandable, thought Aurelia. He had just lost his last surviving parent, and earlier than he should have had to. It made her think of her own father and the night she burned his body on a great pyre, alone in the palace gardens but for Ennius swinging a scented incense canister around and chanting. Noble fathers got taken away too soon. Faibryn wasn’t ready, any more than she had been ready for the throne and the responsibility that fell on her shoulders.

  ‘You are the heir, Faibryn,’ said Terietta through her sniffles. That was why the guards and some of the courtiers had swept such a low bow when they’d entered. They’d been greeting their new Duke.

  Aurelia noticed the nurse for the first time; the young blonde maiden had stayed by the Duke’s side since he was injured, mortally it now seemed, never complaining. She looked so tired and drawn; she must have seen to his moods and ravings as his mind succumbed, but also to his body as it deteriorated. Aurelia hoped she got that kind of care and attention when she passed from this world.

  Terietta’s words broke through and Faibryn seemed to gasp his first breath in two heavy minutes. ‘I never thought this would happen,’ he said quietly, almost murmuring to himself. ‘I always thought Laigus would come back from Theris.’ Though she understood the ramifications were just penetrating through the shock, his thoughts were very much for himself.

  Aurelia turned to Chrysaora and gently nudged her. ‘Can you determine the cause of death?’

  Chrysaora nodded and stepped up to the other side of the bed. There was a general murmur from the crowd of courtiers, but no one went so far as to stop her until Terietta wailed, ‘Don’t you dare touch him!’ Aurelia took her hand.

  ‘She is a Healer, a real one. Like in the legends.’

  Terietta got the wrong idea. ‘She can bring him back?’

  There were gasps from the onlookers.

  Chrysaora placed her hand over the bare area of Lepitern’s chest, the only place where bandages around his shoulder didn’t extend. Black tendrils of decay crept out from underneath. ‘That is beyond my power in one so long gone.’ The thrall closed her eyes. She wouldn’t be enjoying the audience, thought Aurelia, but Chrysaora surprised her. ‘I am reaching deep inside the Duke’s body with the magic of the Medusi, she explained. ‘I can feel and examine every tiny cell that makes up his lungs and his stomach, his heart and his mind.’ Chrysaora’s audience were too interested to object, too fascinated to challenge what was happening. In a city that distrusted thralls as much as Theris, Argentor waited with hope on Chrysaora’s every word. ‘Underneath these bandages his injuries were knitting together, almost healed though the skin remained broken.’

  ‘Then what killed him?’ asked Terietta.

  Chrysaora winced like she had touched something foul. ‘His lungs are rotten, his blood black and thick. Pus and infection lie in every pocket of his body. These are not things caused by healing injuries.’ She opened her eyes. ‘He has been poisoned.’

  The courtiers all began talking at once.

  ‘Poisoned?’ squawked Terietta. ‘Are you sure?’

  Chrysaora tilted her head. ‘I would never lie about such a thing. The poisoning is extensive and he has battled it for many weeks.’

  ‘But who would do such a thing?’ shouted a male courtier, sparking off yet more whispering and murmurs.

  Aurelia caught Chrysaora’s eye, but she could not grasp the meaning in the expression her bodyguard gave. What was she trying to tell her? She wished for a moment she could communicate telepathically with everyone, not just her sister.

  Then she found Terietta looking at her intensely. She began to scowl slowly, her look of suspicion and disgust like the heat off a fire. Aurelia didn’t need telepathy to read her thoughts.

  ‘You!’ Terietta shrieked. Everyone looked at the Major-domo.

  ‘What?’ said Aurelia, unable to stop this.

  Terietta addressed the room. ‘Who has only lately arrived in our city, looking for a way to take our army and use it for herself? Who is the stranger here? Who travelled with the Duke, starting her poisoning attempt while on the road in secret before being unmasked?’ Her anger was burning away her tears. ‘You contrived to marry him, and then when he foiled your plan betrothing you to Faibryn instead, you poisoned him to regain the position you lost. You were trusted, welcomed by the Duke into his palace, and this is how you repay him!’


  Aurelia knew she could not possibly argue her case in that room at that time. She had no better culprit to offer them than Nepheli Opetreia and that would go down like an anchor at sea. She looked around at the massed courtiers and found suspicion in every face, and not a little hate. She didn’t point out that her own thralled bodyguard had given them this information.

  Instead, she remained silent as General Opetreia appeared and two guards marched her out of the room. All the time Faibryn hardly moved, still holding tight to his father’s lifeless hand, too stunned, it seemed, to help her.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Nausithorn

  The Temple of the Order of the Medousa nestled hidden and secluded in the cleft of the Medaquen mountain range. Perhaps ‘mountains’ was a little too grand a term to use; they were more than hills but quite a bit less than peaks. The highest provided cover and shadow for the temple to hide within, the lowest guarded the approach; where the lichen-covered rock fell away, in its place rose a monstrous creation of blackest obsidian and marble. Its stone seemed to swallow the light yet puncture through the shadow. It was greater than the surrounding darkness but it knew that was from where it spawned.

  Naus felt a tingle on his skin that trickled down his spine as he passed from the heat of the Terracon noon into the shade cast by the spiked minarets of the temple, like a dead crow’s talons trying to clutch the sun. It wasn’t like the normal relief of shade, more a sudden and cold absence of daylight. Naus could see great glass sections that seemed to serve no purpose, but snaked through the darker stone like arteries or tentacles through a corpse.

  ‘Impressive, isn’t it. You should have beheld it when the Goddess was in residence,’ said the head librarian, Meeroth. ‘The centre of the Temple shone blue with the radiance of her Medusi, Amnion.’

  Why does that name sound familiar? Naus shuddered at the thought. He’d seen the glow of the temple centuries before when he had led a force of Primes to destroy it. They had been repelled and defeated by terrain, supplies and circumstance. But he remembered the bright blue glow of the temple laughing at him, forever unattainable.

  Until now.

  Meeroth was as good as his word. He took Naus on a guided tour through the large vaulted atrium, talking animatedly about the temple as he went. Crescen followed them up close behind like a puppy, happy to let his master speak. Sharow, the thin acolyte, kept a shrewd eye pinned on Naus and never let it slip.

  ‘You will have to surrender your blade, Arcturus.’ Meeroth said, indicating a panelled cloakroom where an acolyte lounged and then suddenly jumped to attention. ‘We do not get many visitors, but everyone must be unarmed within the temple.’

  Naus returned Sharow’s surly stare as he unclipped his scabbard and blade and handed them to the acolyte.

  ‘Anything else?’ said Meeroth expectantly.

  Naus gave them what they wanted. He wasn’t looking for a fight. In fact, he wanted them to lower their guard still further. He pulled a knife from a boot and dislodged another from the small of his back, placing both on the counter.

  ‘Not so harmless after all.’

  ‘You can’t blame a man for wanting to defend himself,’ said Naus. ‘We live in mean times.’

  Through a large set of doors, the temple branched off in a hundred directions. But for all the space, there were very few Clerics padding down the halls in soft shoes; a couple of scholars with books, a few guards, androgynous in their slick blacks. It was as he had expected, they were all in Theris; he’d seen their column parade past when he’d been on the roof with Marlena. It seemed a lifetime ago already. He wondered absently whether she had got involved with the rebellion.

  Meeroth showed Naus the kitchens, the banquet halls and a great auditorium, shaped something like a nest with a dais at the centre. ‘Sometimes the Goddess would hold rituals here where all her Clerics could see her and know the touch of her power.’ Naus knew that power all too well, painfully aware that he was in her presence even here hundreds of miles away, thanks to the Cephea that hung above Crescen’s head.

  ‘I wish I could have seen that,’ said Naus.

  ‘For many years, only Clerics of the third rank and above were allowed to look upon the Goddess. Now in her ascension she has revealed herself to the world. You should have stayed in Theris, you might have had the chance.’

  Yeah, and I’d have been thralled for my trouble, he thought.

  After the auditorium, they passed through a collection of interior gardens. Naus could feel his clothing sticking to him in the heat. Colourful summer plants and creeping vines worked their way round a huge tree trunk, one of the largest Naus had ever seen.

  ‘This tree was here when the temple was founded by the Goddess and her very first acolytes. They incorporated it into the architecture.’

  ‘Any significance?’

  ‘Simply legacy,’ said Meeroth. ‘It signifies permanence. Humans like us sometimes need to be reminded of our transitory lives. This tree is over four hundred years old. The only thing older is the Goddess herself.’

  Naus let that slide, he wasn’t about to tell them he’d lost count of his own years after the first millennium. But it did reveal that they believed Noctiluca had founded the temple, and that she was something like four hundred years old. Did she have the same longevity problem as he did? Had they both been exposed to something that gave them such long lives? If so, could he find out what the spell was? It felt like it was just there, just out of reach, in the memories that had been stolen from him.

  As they passed out of the gardens and into the cool stone corridors again, Meeroth said, ‘I enjoyed your story of the War of the Overlords. Tell me, do you really think the Thorn was thralled like that? And more than once?’

  The question was a little close to the knuckle and reminded him of Totelun’s. ‘All the stories I tell have been passed down the generations by word of mouth,’ he said. ‘Some of them get written down and recorded in the great libraries of Arceth – I know the Premiers have one – but for the most part they evolve and change with each passing century. Where in one century the Thorn was regaled as a paragon of virtue for betraying an unjust Empress, in other eras he has been seen as a villain and a coward. Same with Velella. Asking whether one tiny detail is true is a fool’s game, you’d have to have been there to see it.’

  Meeroth nodded, considering. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

  They traversed a number of corridors, winding in and out of each other like those in a termite nest. Naus realised that was what the temple reminded him of most; the minarets were like the towers the little insects built, the acolytes and Clerics were the workers and the Goddess was the queen sitting at the centre, ruling over all. He half expected the tunnels to end in nests filled with Medusi being farmed, and then shuddered when he thought how close to the truth this could be.

  ‘Here,’ said Meeroth. They stopped and he pushed open yet another large set of doors that led to a room the size of the auditorium they had recently left. The room was an open three stories, the walls sporting balconies and ladders and stairways leading from floor to floor. All of it was to get to the books, the thousands of them that lined the walls from floor to vaulted ceiling. Tomes and volumes in every type of binding from leather to fabric, and in every state of repair. Some were falling apart like they had been passed down through the centuries. Books could last a long time, but he still suspected he was older than any book here. ‘The greatest library in all Arceth, far superior to the one in the Citadel in Argentor. We have books that date back to the War of the Overlords that you so colourfully retold. It is one of the greatest treasures of the Order of the Medousa.’

  Naus’ eyes lit up as he drunk in the sight of all those books.

  ‘Somewhere in there,’ said Meeroth, ‘is a book that will tell you what the Thorn was truly like. The written word does not evolve like the spoken, it is tangible and unchanging. Eternal, like the Goddess.’

  What Naus saw was answers. He di
dn’t care about the Thorn; somewhere in that vast trove lay the truth about the Order and its origins. He would be able to find everything he needed to help Totelun fulfil his quest, how to destroy the Medusi, who the Medousa really was. It was all in here.

  He stepped forward, and found Sharow’s arm blocking him.

  Meeroth was shaking his head.

  ‘I would give my left arm to read the stories you have here,’ he said, forgetting himself.

  ‘I cannot allow that,’ said Meeroth.

  ‘But you are the head librarian.’

  ‘I showed you the library because I thought you might appreciate it. Perhaps I went too far. Outsiders are rarely allowed even the small hospitality we have shown you so far. You saved Crescen and for that we owe you our thanks.’

  ‘I would take payment in time browsing these books,’ Naus tried.

  Meeroth shook his head sterner still, but Sharow was the one who answered this time, stepping up in Naus’ face. ‘No one is allowed access to the library. What do you not understand? I have not earnt the requisite rank to gain access yet, do you really think we’d allow a stranger in?’

  Naus raised his hands, supplicating. ‘I’m sorry. I understand.’

  What he’d heard was, there are secrets in there even the Medousa doesn’t want her Clerics to know. At least not until they had attained the required rank. Knowledge is power, and knowing the religion you serve is nothing but a lie requires a lifetime of dedication. Naus wanted that knowledge, hoping it wasn’t just fake doctrine about the ascension of humans into thralls, and divine beings. He’d heard enough of that in Theris.

  Meeroth took over again, jovial and smiling. ‘Let me show you to your rooms. We have a whole wing free tonight.’

  *

  Naus waited patiently for darkness to fall that night as he’d never waited for anything else his entire life. The decades and the centuries had gone by, dozens of attempts to get inside this temple, and here he was. Let night fall, he thought, and I will steal into their library and learn the secrets of the Order. I will find out how to destroy Noctiluca, how to rid this world of Medusi once and for all. And then I must relocate Totelun and Cassandra.