by Paul Kearney
“Where might we find such a man?” Quirion asked guardedly. He had not missed the threat in Sastro’s words.
“I am not sure, but if your archivists delve deep enough I believe they may find the house of Carrera closer to the throne than you think.”
Quirion laughed his coarse laugh—the guffaw of a commoner, Sastro thought with disgust, though nothing of his feelings showed on his face.
“The kingship in return for your men, my lord?” the Presbyter said.
Sastro raised his carefully trimmed eyebrows. “Why not? No one else will make you a similar offer, I’ll warrant.”
“Not even the Sequeros?”
“Astolvo will not. He knows that were he to do so his life would be hanging by a thread. His sons are champing at the bit beneath him; he would not last a year. How would that look? The Church-sponsored monarchy of Hebrion embroiled in murderous intrigue, perhaps even parricide, within months of its establishment.”
Quirion looked thoughtful, gauging. “Such decisions of moment must be referred to Himerius in Charibon. The Pontiff will have the final word.”
“The Pontiff, may the Saints be good to him, will no doubt follow the recommendations of his representative on the spot.”
Quirion repaired to the table on which sat a host of decanters. He poured himself a dribble of wine and drank it off, grimacing. He did not imbibe as a rule, but he felt the need of the warming liquid; there was a chill in the room.
“Get word to your co-conspirator, Freiss,” he said. “Tell him to prepare his men for action. And start gathering your own followers together, Lord Carrera. We must work on a combined plan.”
“Will there then be a messenger sent to Charibon with your recommendations?” Sastro asked.
“There will. I will . . . advise my archivists to look into the genealogy of your house.”
“A wise decision, Presbyter. You are obviously a man of sagacity.”
“Perhaps. Now that the bargaining is done, can we attend to the more mundane details? I want rosters, equipment lists.”
The man had no style, Sastro thought. No sense of the moment. But that was by-the-by. He had secured the kingship for himself; that was the main thing. He had negotiated a path to power. But he had not arrived at its threshold, not yet. There remained much to be done.
“I will have everything ready for you to peruse this afternoon,” he said smoothly. “And I will have couriers sent to my estates and those of my vassals. The men will begin assembling directly.”
“Good. This thing must be done quickly. If we cannot storm the Lower City before Abeleyn arrives, it will be the work of several campaigns to secure Abrusio, with all the destruction that entails.”
“Indeed. I have no wish to rule over a hill of ashes.”
Quirion stared at his aristocratic companion. “The new king will rule in conjunction with the Church. I have no doubt that the Pontiff will wish to maintain a garrison of the Knights here, even after the rebels are extinguished.”
“They will be an inestimable help, a valued adjunct to Royal authority.”
Quirion nodded. “Just so we understand each other. Now if you will excuse me, my Lord Carrera, I must prepare to address my brethren. And there are wounded to visit.”
“By all means. Will you give me your blessing before I go, excellency?”
Sastro rose, then knelt before the Presbyter with his head bowed. Quirion’s face spasmed. He grated out the words of the blessing as though they were a curse. The nobleman regained his feet, made the Sign of the Saint with mocking flamboyance and left the room.
O VER five hundred leagues away, the Thurian Mountains were thick and white with midwinter snows. The last of the passes had been closed and the sultanate of Ostrabar was sealed off to the west and the south by the mountain barrier, itself merely an outlying range of the fearsome Jafrar Mountains farther east.
The tower had once been part of the upland castle of a Ramusian noble, one of the hundreds which had dotted the rich vales of Ostiber in the days when it had been a Ramusian kingdom. But it was different now. For sixty years the Merduk overlords had possessed the rich eastern region. Its ruler was Aurungzeb the Golden, the Stormer of Aekir, and the people he ruled had come to accept the Merduk yoke, as it was called in the west. They tilled their fields as they had always done and by and large they were no worse off under their Merduk lords than they had been under the Ramusian ones.
True, their sons must serve a stint in the Sultan’s armies, but for the most talented of them there was no bar to ambition. If a man had ability, he might rise very high in the service of the Sultan no matter how low his birth. It was one of the cunning ways in which the Merduks had reconciled the people to their rule, and it brought continual new blood into the army and the administration. The grandfathers of the men who had fought under the banners of Ahrimuz the Prophet at Aekir and Ormann Dyke had struggled against those same banners two generations before. For the peasantry it was a pragmatic choice. They were tied to their land and when it changed owners they would change masters as a matter of course.
Most of the upland castle was in ruins, but one wing with its tall tower remained intact and it gave a fine view of the valleys below. On a clear day it was even possible to see Orkhan, the capital of the Sultan, glittering with minarets in the distance. But the castle was isolated. Built too high in the Thurian foothills, it had been deserted even before the Merduks came, its occupants forced out by the severity of the upland winters.
Sometimes the local inhabitants lower in the valley would remark upon the dark tower standing alone on the wintry heights above. It was rumoured that strange lights could be seen flashing in its windows after dark, and there were tales of inhuman beasts which roamed the fells around it in nights of moon. Sheep had gone missing, and a boy herder had disappeared. No one dared to approach the old ruin, though, and it was left to its malignant contemplation of the dales below.
T HE beast turned from the window and its monochrome world of white snow and black trees and distant lights. It shuffled across the circular tower chamber and sank into a padded chair before the fire with a sigh. The endless wind was moaning about the gaps in the roof and occasional confettis of snow would flutter in the glassless window.
A beast was dressed in human robes, and its head was like some grotesque marriage of humanity and reptile. The body was awkward and bent, and talons scraped the flagged floor in place of toes. Only the hands remained recognizably human, though they were treble-jointed and slightly scaled, reflecting back the firelight with a green tint.
Other things reflected back the firelight also. Arranged around the walls on shelves were great glass carboys full of liquid, the light of the flames kindling answering shines from their depths. In some floated the small grey corpses of newborn babies, eyes shut as though they were still dreaming in the womb. In others were the coiled bodies of large snakes, their sides flattened against the glass. And in three of the fat-bellied jars, dark bipedal shapes stood gazing down into the room with eyes that were the merest gleeds of bright incarnadine. They moved restlessly in the surrounding liquid, as though impatient at their confinement.
The room was full of a sour smell, like clothes left lying out in the rain. On a small table in front of the hearth was a silver salver upon which smoked the dying ashes of a tiny fire. There were small bones in the ashes, the miniature egg-sized remnant of a fanged skull.
The thing in the chair leaned forward and poked at the ashes with one long forefinger. Its eyes glittered. With a furious gesture it sent ashes, salver and all flying into the fire. Then it leaned back in the chair, hissing.
From a niche near the ceiling the winged shape of a homonculus fluttered down like a gargoyle in miniature. It settled on the beast’s shoulder and nuzzled the wattled neck.
“Easy, Olov. It is no matter,” the beast said, patting the distressed little creature. And then: “Batak!”
A door opened at the rear of the chamber and a man dressed in
travelling clothes of fur-lined cape and high boots entered. He was young, his eyes coal-black, earlobes heavy with gold rings. His face was as pale as plaster and he was sweating despite the season.
“Master?”
“It failed again—as you can see. I merely destroyed another homonculus.”
The young man came forward. “I am sorry.”
“Yes, you are. Pour me some wine, will you, Batak?”
The young man did so silently. His hand was shaking and he mopped spilt liquid with one corner of his sleeve, darting frightened glances at the thing in the chair as he did so.
The beast took the proffered wine and threw it back, tilting its head like a chicken to drink. The crystal of the goblet cracked within its digits. The beast regarded the object with a weary irritation, then threw the flawed thing to shatter in the fire.
“The whole world is new to me,” it muttered.
“What will you do now, master? Are you going to undertake the journey?”
The beast looked at him with bright, fulvid eyes. The air around it seemed to shimmer for a second and the homonculus took off for the rafters with a squeak. When the air steadied once more there was a man sitting there in place of the beast, a lean, dark-skinned man with a face as fine-boned as that of a woman. Only the eyes remained of the former monster, lemon-bright and astonishing in the handsome visage.
“Does this make you less nervous, Batak?”
“It is good to see your face again, master.”
“I can only hold this form for a few hours at a time, and the eyes resist any change. Perhaps because they are the windows of the soul, it is said.” The man smiled without the slightest trace of humour. “But in answer to your question: yes, I will undertake the journey. The Sultan’s agents are already in Alcaras hiring ships—big, ocean-going ships, not the galleys of the Levangore. I have an escort and a carriage billeted down in the village; the Sultan means to be sure I go where I say I am going.”
“Into the uttermost west. Why?”
The man stood up and put his back to the fire, splaying his hands out against the heat. There was a flickering blur, like a ripple of shadow around his silhouette. Dweomer-born illusions were always unstable in bright light.
“There is something out there, in the west. I know it. In my research I have come across legends, myths, rumours. They all point to the same conclusion: there is land in the west, and something else. Someone, perhaps. Besides, I am little use to the Sultan as I am. When Shahr Baraz—may he rot in a Ramusian hell—destroyed the homonculus which was my conductor he not only warped my body, he crippled the Dweomer within me. I am still powerful, still Orkh the master-mage, but my powers are not what they were. I would not have that come to light, Batak.”
“Of course. I—”
“You will be discreet. I know. You are a good apprentice. In a few years you will have mastered the Fourth Discipline and you will be a mage yourself. I have left you enough of my library and materials for you to continue your studies even without my guidance.”
“It is the court, master, the harem. They unsettle me. There is more to being the Sultan’s sorcerer than Dweomer.”
Orkh smiled, this time with some real warmth. “I know, but that is something else you must learn. Do not cross the vizier, Akran. And court the eunuchs of the harem. They know everything. And never reveal to the Sultan the limits of your power—never say you cannot do something. Prevaricate, obfuscate, but do not admit to any weakness. Men think mages all-powerful. We want to keep it that way.”
“Yes, master. I will miss you. You have been a good teacher.”
“And you a good pupil.”
“Do you hope to be healed in the west? Is that it? Or are you merely removing yourself from the sight of men?”
“Aurungzeb asked me the same thing. I do not know, Batak. I weary of being a monster, that much I do know. Even a leper does not know the isolation I have suffered, the loneliness. Olov has been my only companion; he is the only creature which looks upon me without fear or disgust.”
“Master, I—”
“It is all right, Batak. There is no need to pretend. In my research, I have discovered that several times in the past centuries ships have sailed for the west and have not returned. They carried passengers—sorcerers fleeing persecution in the Ramusian states. I do not believe that all those ships were lost. I believe there may be survivors or descendants of survivors out there still.”
Batak’s eyes grew round. “And you think they will be able to heal you?”
“I don’t know. But I weary of the intrigues at court. I want to see a new horizon appear with every dawn. And it suits Aurungzeb’s policies. The Ramusians have already sent a flotilla westwards; it left Abrusio months ago under a Gabrionese captain named Richard Hawkwood. They should be in the west now. The Merduk sultanates cannot allow this new world to be claimed by our enemies. I concur with Aurungzeb in that.”
“You know that Shahr Baraz is not dead? He disappeared along with his pasha, Mughal. It is said they rode off eastwards, back into the steppes.”
“I know. My revenge may never happen. He will leave his pious old bones in the Jafrar, or on the endless plains of Kambaksk. It matters not. Other things concern me now.”
Orkh left the fire and strode over to a nearby table which supported an iron-bound chest. He opened the lid, looked in, nodded, then turned to his apprentice once more.
“In here you will find the details of my intelligence network. Names of agents, cyphers, dates of payments—everything. It is up to you to run it, Batak. I have men in every kingdom in the west, most of them risking their lives each day. That is a responsibility which I do not hand over lightly. No one else must ever see the contents of this chest. You will secure it with your most potent spells, and destroy it if there is a possibility of it falling into any other hands except your own—even Aurungzeb’s. Do you understand?”
Batak nodded dumbly.
“There is also a more select network of homonculi, some dormant, some active. I have them planted everywhere, even in the harem. They are the eyes and ears you can trust most, for they are without bias or self-interest. When their bellies are full, at any rate. Use them well; and be discreet. They can be a useful cross-reference to back up the reports of your agents. When you are ready for a familiar, I would advise you to choose a homonculus. They can be wayward, but the ability to fly is always a help and their night vision is invaluable.” Here Orkh’s mouth tilted upwards. “Olov has shown me some rare sights in his nocturnal patrols of the harem. The most recent Ramusian concubine is a delight to behold. Aurungzeb takes her twice nightly, as eagerly as a boy. He has little notion of subtlety, though.”
The mage collected himself.
“At any rate, there is amusement to be had if you use your resources properly, but if you gain information which you should not know I do not have to tell you to keep it to yourself, no matter how useful it might prove. The network must be safe-guarded at all costs.”
“Yes, master.”
Orkh stepped away from the chest. “It is yours, then. Use it wisely.”
Batak took the chest in his arms as though it were made of glass.
“You may go. I find the maintenance of this appearance wearisome. When you ride through the village, tell the escort rissaldar that I will be ready to leave at moonrise tomorrow night. I have some final packing to do.”
Batak bowed awkwardly. As he went out of the door he turned. “Thank you, master.”
“When you see me again—if you do—it will be as a mage, a master of four of the Seven Disciplines. On that day you shall take me by the hand and call me Orkh.”
Batak smiled uncertainly. “I shall look forward to that.”
Then he left.
T HE snow was as crisp as biscuit underfoot and the taloned feet of the beast cracked the surface crust, but the widespread toes stopped it from sinking any deeper. Naked and scaled, its tail whipping back and forth restlessly, it prowled the s
treets of the sleeping village. The moon glittered from its skin as though it were armoured in many-faceted silver. The glowing eyes blinked as it eased open the shutter of a cottage with inhuman, silent strength. A dark room within, a tiny shape blanket-wrapped in the cradle.
It took the bundle out into the hills, and there it fed, dipping its snout into the steaming, broken body. Sated at last, it raised its head and stared up at the savage, snow-gleaming peaks of the encircling mountains. West, where the sun had set. Where a new life awaited it, perhaps.
It cleaned its snout in the snow. With a bestial form came bestial appetites. But it saved a morsel of the child for Olov.
EIGHT
T HEY were intoning the Glory to God, the terdiel which brought Matins to a close. For centuries, the monks and clerics of Charibon had sung it in the early hours of every new day, and the simple yet infinitely beautiful melody was taken up by half a thousand voices to echo into the beams and rafters of the cathedral.
The benches of the monks lined the walls of the triangular cathedral’s base. Monsignors, presbyters and bishops had their own individual seats at the back with ornately carved armrests and kneeling boards. The Inceptines assembled on the right, the other orders—mostly Antillian, but with a few Mercurians—on the left. As the monks sang an old Inceptine with a candle lantern went up and down the rows, nudging any of the brethren who had nodded off. If they happened to wear the white hoods of novices they would receive a kick and a glare rather than a shake of their shoulder.
Himerius the High Pontiff had joined his fellow clerics for Matins this morning, something he rarely did. He was seated facing his brethren, his Saint’s symbol glittering in the light of a thousand beeswax candles. His hawk’s profile was clearly picked out by the candlelight as he sang.