Overlords, what is happening? This was all going wrong. There wasn’t supposed to be an enemy force waiting for them. He thought back to his Teca war games, with Ennius, and then later with Miriell. Never let your enemy pick the battleground, it was one of the ten divine stratagems.
He squinted, casting his eye further down the hill, until he found the Argentori representative halfway across the valley, equidistant from both formations. He pulled out the small lens he had intended to use to oversee the thralling of the city from a far-off elevation.
Aurelia! Anthrom almost squealed. Her blonde hair swirled in the gentle wind over her fitted battle armour. She stood waiting with her hands on her hips. He ducked back behind the curtain, fearful for a moment she might have seen him. He quickly regained himself. How could she?
Noctiluca had been wrong. She’d told him that his sister was dead, executed by the Argentori court. He’d felt that grand swell of satisfaction in his chest at the news. She had got what she had always deserved. Now it was replaced by the fluttering of anxious butterflies.
He looked again. She stood next to a strange creature he had never seen before, like a spiky spindly horse, with leg flaps. As he looked closer, he wondered if it might be a Luacha, if he remembered the name from his Arceth Bestiary. He turned back to Malik who was waiting for his instruction. The course of action was up to Anthrom as Noctiluca’s representative. This was why he was here – to deal with unforeseen situations. Can’t get more unforeseen than this!
‘You will stay here,’ he said. ‘I will conduct this first meeting myself.’
Malik didn’t react, closed his eyes. ‘The Goddess does not approve.’
‘Noctiluca, please,’ Anthrom said, addressing her directly. He knew she could hear him. ‘You sent me here specifically for this purpose. Your messenger isn’t here, so something has gone wrong. I want to gain their trust a little before we threaten. Perhaps we can reason with them, come to an understanding. Maybe we can still avoid a battle.’
‘Who is the representative?’ Malik barked, his eyes clouding over. They were Noctiluca’s words.
‘I will find out.’ He didn’t tell her it was Aurelia. He wanted to know what was happening first. Some small part of him actually wanted to talk to her. But not as himself. No, he had a much better idea. ‘Trust me.’
The Cephean edged back, acquiescing. Noctiluca would allow him this small amount of autonomy. He had far to go before he would be allowed the free rein Harling was. But maybe, once the city was his.
Anthrom shut the curtain on young Malik and his disapproval. Inside the palanquin, he reached inside himself and drew on his new abilities. It was about will. You had to will your creation into being and it would be.
He assumed a new identity, covering and concealing his own under layers of deception. He changed his facial structure, made himself older by twenty years, changed his eye colour from blue to brown. He removed the Medusi from the image so that he would be perceived as unthralled. Argentor was just as intolerant as Theris. He crafted a regal uniform, but in the colours of the Order – black with turquoise trim and collar. A strong distinguished beard and a muscular frame like the best specimens of noble manhood.
Once he was certain he had his disguise in place, he stepped from the palanquin, on the opposite side where Malik wouldn’t see him. He still didn’t want Noctiluca to know of his ability to alter perception. Not until he had no other choice.
He strode down the valley to meet Aurelia.
*
As he neared the flat stretch at the bottom of the valley where Aurelia stood, he spared a glance back to see his army from her perspective. The Medusi swarms waited, floating ominously in their tens of thousands; he knew that behind them floated tens of thousands more in the trees, over the ridges of land that characterised Argentor. The thralls held back, but he could see them also; an army in itself probably more than up to the task of destroying whatever paltry defence his sister would attempt.
The sight unnerved Anthrom and it was his army. He marvelled at Aurelia standing before his expansive host. She was brave, he had to give her that.
It was apt that he had thought her gone. She really is a dead woman, she just doesn’t know it yet.
He came to a stop five yards from her.
The Luacha caught his attention first; completely unimpressed by its surroundings, it was obliviously munching the long grass. On closer inspection, it had long striding legs with strange extendable membranes, and a broad back. A mount, often called an Ambler, if his memory of his Bestiary served.
Aurelia looked different somehow since he’d seen her last. She still had the same haughty air, the same privilege and luck it seemed, but at the same time she had grown; she was older, and not just by the intervening months, but somehow deep inside. She’d been out here in the real world for the first time, and she’d matured. She’d been through just some of what their world could throw at a person, and she’d come out on the other side, stronger. As she stared back at him, he wondered if her own appraisal of him wouldn’t be similar. He’d matured also, he’d survived the Medousa’s occupation of the palace where Aurelia would have died defiantly, he’d elevated himself to the point that he could meet her across the late summer grass and feel equal, possibly even superior.
But she had no idea who she faced. She made no indication she recognised him.
‘I thought I'd be speaking to Faibryn Argentor,’ he said. He had made his voice lower, older, a man’s voice, not a child’s still breaking intermittently. He didn’t sense any recognition in her expression.
Noctiluca’s informant in the city had been the third son of the Duke’s corrupted family, a youth called Faibryn. He would try to find out his fate if he could.
‘The Marquis is missing,’ she said simply.
‘At least one of his generals?’
Aurelia seemed to find that amusing. ‘I am the closest thing you are going to get to a general here,’ she said. ‘Duke Lepitern is dead, his sons scattered. The city has appointed me its representative and commander.’
‘They must be desperate.’ He couldn’t resist. ‘Aurelia of House Nectris commanding in Argentor. How did you manage that?’ Some small part of him was marginally impressed.
‘They took some convincing.’ The throwaway comment sounded like the truth, weary from a hard-fought campaign. Anthrom understood, he had fought his own to get here. ‘You know who I am,’ she said, ‘but who are you? One of Noctiluca's stooges, a pawn sent to die in her place?’
If only you knew, he thought, your brother stands before you. Equals finally in power and prestige.
‘Fernishal Ecrin,’ he said, embellishing the same persona he’d used when recruiting the street children. ‘The Goddess’ envoy.’ He imagined Fernishal had grown up a well-educated noble, quickly becoming an officer in the Theris military, who had taken full advantage when the Order had taken the city to climb the ranks. Where his fellows had their skulls crushed by Noctiluca, he had obeyed and was now a trusted emissary and general. Not so far from the truth, he mused.
‘You aren’t thralled,’ she observed.
‘No need to thrall those you trust implicitly.’
‘You speak like a Theris noble, but I don’t recognise the name Ecrin. Were you, let’s say, one of mine? Before. Or were you always of the Order?’
‘I was never yours. But I was in the Therian military.’ He couldn’t resist the opportunity to needle her. ‘Now I serve another, infinitely more deserving. The Goddess demands you stand down your pitiful defence of this city. No one wants precious lives lost.’
Aurelia shook her head. ‘I know what that sorceress wants. To thrall this city as she did my own. The only reason she doesn’t want lives lost is so that she can enslave them,’ she gestured to the lines of thralled behind him, ‘turn them into mindless automatons. Golems with human bodies. Tell me, how is my city now?’
‘It stands,’ he said, ‘no thanks to you.’ The Cephean couldn’t hea
r him here and after a moment he added, ‘Clerics walk the street. The density of thralls and Medusi begins to warp the buildings. No one has cleared the streets since the siege.’
The gentle breeze played with her hair as she stared at him. He couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking, but he hoped it hurt. She had abandoned their city, he hadn’t.
‘And its people?’ she said, her voice catching.
‘Half of them are here,’ he said, ‘to exact retribution. You abandoned them. They follow the Goddess now. Every day more step forward to be thralled voluntarily. There is little food to be had in the city, and I hear stirrings of rebellion.’
Her battle armour could not shield her from what she most feared; he watched her expression as she heard his words, saw her face drop.
‘Worry not,’ he said, feeling guilty for a moment, before adding lamely, ‘soon the Goddess will control Argentor as well.’
It only served to steel her. ‘Your Goddess will not enslave these people. Not like she did when she thralled mine. She succeeded then only through subterfuge and trickery. Those tactics will not work again. I am aware of her, I know her plans.’
‘Her ambition is no secret, Aurelia,’ he said. ‘I do not understand your fear of thralls. Your sister was one, what of her? You accepted her.’
Aurelia nodded. ‘I would always accept my people, thralled or not. But just as I will fight you today for the people of this city, I would have fought until my life gave out to prevent Cassandra from being thralled.’
Anthrom found he was interested in Cassandra, the sister he had actually liked, adored even. She had never treated him the way Aurelia had. ‘And what of your sister? How does she fair?’
He realised what he’d said, but only after the words had left his mouth.
Aurelia frowned, almost squinted at him. ‘She’s dead, Lord Ecrin. Died in an explosion during the siege. An explosion your own Order carried out after she betrayed you to me.’
Anthrom mentally chastised himself. Stupid! If she hadn’t been parading Cassandra all around Argentor – which he doubted – he and Aurelia were possibly the only ones who knew she was still alive. They’d escaped before the Order had managed to catch them, and unless Anthrom had survived there was no way that the Order would know about Cassandra’s survival.
She was still looking at him strangely.
He’d had little practice and it was difficult to keep track of the lies when you played the part of another. He would need to hone his acting skills, maintaining his lies and illusions. He had to do better.
Anthrom knew he’d only dig a hole if he drew attention to his error. Cover it with something instead, he told himself.
‘If you will not stand down, give yourself up,’ he said. Take her mind back to the parlay.
‘How much authority do you think you have?’ she asked. ‘Did Noctiluca allow you to safeguard the city in exchange for me.’
‘Give yourself up,’ he said. ‘You did not need to flee Theris. The Goddess will spare Argentor if you travel back with me and bend the knee.’ She had said nothing of the sort and if Aurelia agreed for her new city’s safety, the moment she was safely manacled the inexorable advance would continue. But he hoped the consideration would take her mind elsewhere.
‘Would that help to ingratiate you with your new mistress, Anthrom?’ Aurelia asked.
His mouth felt dry. ‘Anthrom?’ It was all he could think of to say.
‘Yes, Anthrom. Is this more of her magic? Hiding you under that skin?’ He didn’t react for a moment, teasing out his strange reaction to her insult. He couldn’t abide the thought that Aurelia thought even now that it was Noctiluca’s magic. Not after what he had gone through. This was his own. So, he either maintained the fiction, or came clean. Neither choice gave the power to Noctiluca.
‘It is not her magic. It is mine.’
Aurelia’s mouth was set. ‘Show yourself. Drop the façade. I know it’s you. No one but you could know Cassandra was alive.’ She had heard his mistake and she had called in her gamble.
He owed her nothing, but he wanted to demonstrate why he was now better than her. Anthrom let his face age in reverse until he was fifteen again. The beard fell away, his eyes returned to blue. His body shrunk back to its correct proportions, the dark uniform became his own regal doublet. And finally, his Medusi appeared behind him, its blue light winking into existence.
Aurelia tried to keep her face impassive as he let the illusion drop, but it betrayed her. Her mouth peeled back in disgust, her eyes narrowed. ‘You’re thralled!’
‘I have power,’ he said, ‘the power of perception. The link with the Medusi grants me this skill.’
‘But at what cost?’
Anthrom frowned. ‘The cost is plain to see. I had to become a thrall.’
‘You have sacrificed your humanity. You can’t go back.’
‘I haven’t changed. I am still human. Just better.’
‘You sacrificed yourself to her though, didn’t you?’
Anthrom was realising all over again why he hated Aurelia. This wasn’t going correctly. She was supposed to be amazed at his powers. Uncontrollably jealous of him. Instead, all he was getting was her disappointment.
He had sacrificed to Noctiluca. He thought back through the last months; he had been forced to slowly give up his humanity. He had killed Verismuss. He had been promised power if only he would give up just a little more to her each time. He had delivered innocents into her waiting embrace, betrayed others to the Medusi queen.
But in return he now had the power of the Overlords.
Was the trade worth it?
‘You always did like to hide,’ Aurelia was saying. ‘It suits you I suppose, hiding in plain sight. You have always been a spy, now you have a ready disguise whenever you need it. But you are also hiding behind the power of another. Hiding behind the skirts of a sorceress who will destroy you the moment you are no longer useful.’ She paused for a long moment, the said, ‘I’m so sorry, Anthrom.’
What? ‘No, don’t feel sorry for me! I wanted this. I chose this.’
‘I’m sorry I left you there. I was in panic, you had just tried to kill Cassandra. But family is family. I should have taken you with us.’ Anthrom couldn’t believe what she was saying. ‘I left you there to fend for yourself when I knew full well Noctiluca would take the castle. You are too young and she has taken you under her wing, played with you, given you power you can’t possibly understand the cost of.’
‘Shut up! You don’t know what I’ve been through, what I’ve done. I chose this! You don’t understand anything!’
‘Anthrom, the moment you are not useful you will be tossed aside. The moment this city falls, you will know you have failed. And I can see in your eye, you know what she does to failures.’
‘I have power now, Aurelia. Such power you cannot understand. I can be anyone, fool anyone, go anywhere. I could hide now while you continued to talk to an illusion. The power of perception is a force of nature.’ He struggled to spit out everything she wasn’t understanding. ‘I could go back and kill her if I wanted too. I could hide from her, take down the Order from the inside. She is not the one in control!’
Aurelia glanced to the ground. ‘I would have thought the failure of your plans to take my throne would have taught you a lesson. Don’t tangle with powerful forces you cannot control. You tried to kill your own sister, you did kill Lesevia. Didn’t that make you stop and think?’
‘You don’t get to come back from that!’ he yelled.
‘You are worse now than you were then!’ she snapped back.
They both lapsed into silence. Anthrom seethed, his chest rising and falling too fast. Aurelia brought out the worst in him, she always had. He hated her for it. Every time he thought he could get the better of her, she somehow managed to twist his words, his actions into some kind of patronising dressing down. She was a master of condescension.
He wished he’d tried to kill Aurelia instead of C
assandra. If Cassandra had been the one to walk out on this field, she would have understood. She was thralled as well. She would have taken him in, or returned to Noctiluca with him, so that he would not have to return empty handed. They could have ruled the world together.
Instead, he’d been coaxed to attempt to kill her for the power he always craved.
When he spoke again, he’d lost the energy for an argument. ‘If Cassandra is alive, tell her I’m sorry. I never thought I’d get a chance to apologise,’ he said.
Aurelia scowled at him. ‘Don’t give me that!’ she spat. ‘If you were sorry you wouldn’t be here, thralled and working for Noctiluca. You wouldn’t have done what you’ve done to get here. I dread to think what it must have taken to rise this far. Are you proud to be one of those ushering in the enslavement of mankind? You are aiding the one who is trying to destroy us all! Do you think you’re going to be sat on the top of the pile at the end of it, somehow unscathed? This power will warp and destroy you, Anthrom. Power corrupts, have you never heard that? You’re the living embodiment of it.’
It was no use. She would never understand. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to happen here.
He took a deep breath to steady himself and signalled to young Malik standing by his palanquin. The boy immediately began running in their direction. He would be here in a few moments.
Aurelia was watching same as he was.
‘If you won’t bargain with me,’ Anthrom said, skipping back to the reason they were here, ‘then you can talk to the Goddess herself.’
‘You have found your true calling, Anthrom,’ she said. ‘You always wanted power, so much so that you betrayed your family for it. Now you have it. And all you had to do was sell your soul to an insane sorceress.’ She spat at his feet.
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 53