by Andy Sparrow
A priest soldier of high rank greeted them and bowed low before His Lordship.
“Your Eminence, Saloxe, emissary of His Supreme Holiness will receive you at the striking of the fifth bell.”
“Saloxe?” replied His Lordship, with a suggestion of both surprise and distaste.
“Word has been sent to His Holiness of your arrival.”
“Sent to where?”
“To Matrodar, Eminence.”
His Lordship allowed another flicker of surprise to cross his face before recovering his composure.
“Very well. You will ensure that the goods carried with me are taken to the vaults. I will go to my villa now.”
They separated from the column and turned aside from the major road that lead to the high tower. Within a short while the coach drew up before a large house where an elderly man, with flowing white hair and beard, bowed low.
“Lordship. May God be praised that you are safely returned to us.”
“May He be praised indeed,” said His Lordship. “That you have been granted life long enough to see my return, Alasam. Is all well with the house?”
“All is well Lord, save that our old gardener, Erun, has died.”
“All the other servants are in good health?”
“All of them, Lord.” There was a suggestion of emphasis on 'all' and a nod from His Lordship that acknowledged this.
“Lord,” continued Alasam, “we are sorry to hear that your protector Kalor has died in your service.”
His eyes turned to Torrin, who thought that he looked far from sorry.
“A loss indeed,” said His Lordship. “This is my new servant and protector. He will need to be taught the ways of the house, and of the city. Oh, there is also another servant to be trained.” With a glance he indicated Valhad who still sat on the roof of the coach. “Perhaps he could be trained as a gardener.”
“Perhaps, Lord,” said Alasam, apparently unconvinced of this possibility.
They entered the villa. Within were an expansive tiled hallway and a broad carved staircase leading to the upper floor. A glazed dome in the roof admitted red hued sunlight to the upper landing. There were paintings hung in rows upon the walls, each a drab portrayal of some episode in the Text, most involving grisly death and torment of the soul. But there were flowers too, many bunches, fresh cut and fragrant as if some occupant of the house had determined to make a stand against cold austerity.
“I will rest now,” said His Lordship. “Vasagi, go with Alasam. Later you will accompany me to the tower.”
Torrin and Valhad were led to the back of the house and into a room hot with cooking and rich in the smell of spices. Sat around a long wooden table were the servants of the house.
“His Lordship is resting,” announced Alasam. “This young man is to be trained in the duty of the household,” he continued, indicating Valhad. There were nods and murmurs of welcome.
“And this...” he said, turning to Torrin, “is His Lordship's new protector.” Suspicious eyes examined Torrin.
“I am Torrin.” No greeting followed. “I am to do Kalor's duty…” Still no one spoke. “But I am not Kalor.”
The silence was broken by a woman who turned from stirring a pot on the stove.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
Torrin and Valhad sat at the table and ate from steaming bowls of stew. Torrin looked at the faces around him. Alasam sat at the table’s head, apparently lord of this subservient domain. There were two other men of middle years; one a coachman the other a gardener, there was the rather large and fierce woman cook and then there were three young women who were all quite beautiful, each in their own way. They were called Marasil, Cardura, and Graselle. Torrin had heard girlish laughter before he entered the room, but now the trio watched him in sullen, brooding silence. He wondered what Kalor had done to leave this legacy of fear.
It was Marasil who gave Torrin the most searching look while her fingers nervously stroked her face, as if attempting some half-wished concealment of her features. There seemed to be a purpose in her eyes, and more besides, a beauty too, that drew Torrin’s gaze. Then Alasam asked what tribe and land they were from and they told their story, each in turn adding a detail here and there. They spoke of the Vasagi, of the Asgal and the Ummakil. They told of the serpents and the iceberg, how the ship found them. Now the girls were listening with wide-eyed fascination and began to ask tentative questions.
“Are your tribe fierce warriors?”
“No, simple hunters. Peaceful people who made no war.”
They continued with their story, of how death came to Kalor, but no tears were shed from any around the table. Valhad began to tell of the journey east, but Torrin interrupted.
“His Lordship has ordered that we should not to speak of that voyage.” He looked at the faces turned towards him. They were cautious again, reminded suddenly who this man was, and the half-guessed nature of his duties.
“Know this, all of you,” said Torrin, looking at each of them in turn. “His Lordship understands well that which I will do, and that which I will not do in his service. We are Vasagi. We know what is right, and what is wrong.” There was silence for a moment.
“Then what god do you worship?” asked Marasil.
“The Vasagi worship no god,” said Torrin.
“And can you still know what is right and wrong?” she asked, with doubt in her voice.
The reply came from Valhad.
“Yes. Of course. And so can all men. We have never needed god to know in our hearts what is right.”
There was a long moment as Marasil stared back into Valhad's blue eyes. Then a bell rang three times.
“Three rings is your number, Protector,” said Alasam, “His Lordship summons you.”
Alasam led Torrin back to the entrance hall where His Lordship was already waiting, his usual simple clothing concealed beneath a robe of elaborate design.
“Vasagi, I have an audience within the tower. Your services are not normally required within its walls but you may accompany me on this occasion; I must show some token of my travels.”
The coach that carried them to the tower was much finer and grander than the modest vehicle that had brought them to the city. A short journey took them to a gate like a cave mouth set into an unclimbable cliff. Guards saluted as they rumbled through into what was almost a tunnel, so massive and wide were the walls. Then they emerged into an inner courtyard and before them rose the great central tower. Triangular windows were set into each of its three sides, one line above another, stretching upwards until the rows seemed to merge. Sunlight bathed one face of the tower while the others were in deep shadow, making the structure appear like the blade of some monstrous knife. The journey had taken little time and might as easily have been walked but Torrin began to understand that men like His Lordship did not arrive on foot, especially not in their finest robes.
They stepped down from the carriage before a wide set of steps that rose to a triangular portal.
“Vasagi, you will follow ten paces behind me. And try not to look too overawed. Remember that men of your profession are supposed to remain impassive with a slightly threatening air.”
Torrin set a stony face, only permitting his eyes to wander slightly, giving his best impression that he had seen a hundred cities that were grander than this. They climbed the flight of broad steps and passed through the portal into a high chamber. Many rows of windows admitted the sunlight in angled beams of red light. There were massive pillars set in rows, bearing the great weight of the many floors above. Set centrally was a single table where a single priest sat writing. His quill scratched at a sheet of parchment and the sound seemed to grow and fill the echoing void. His raised his head as they approached but did not rise.
“Lord Vagis, you are expected. Is this your protector?”
“It is.”
“His weapon must remain here.”
“By whose command?”
“By the command of he who
awaits in the synod chamber, Saloxe, Emissary of His Supreme Holiness.”
His Lordship nodded to Torrin who unbuckled his sword.
“You may ascend,” said the priest and resumed his scratching writing.
They came to the foot of a broad stair that rose in many flights following the three walls of the tower. At each sharp angled turn a carved statue stood upon the baluster. The first was the greatest, a stern father figure with only the slightest suggestion of compassion in the stone cold eyes. His Lordship bowed before it and uttered a few words of contrition.
“Is that how you see your God,” asked Torrin, “so fierce and angry?”
“He is angry because we fail him. Even Amon, the first man, did so. See, his image is next.”
They stopped before the carving of Amon. A handsome muscular form, but filled with hideous lust and guilt.
“After God made the world,” His Lordship explained, “he made the animals and then he made Amon to be his companion. He gave Amon life eternal, to live forever with God upon the world. But Amon became obsessed with the ways of the animals who were soulless and bred by fornication and lust filled his body. He craved the way of flesh, and begged for a mate. And God was made angry, and took away the gift of life eternal, and punished Amon by granting his wish.”
They came to the next statue. A fierce woman glowered at them, reeking of strength, sexuality and immense power.
“God said to Amon, 'I will give you a mate, and I shall make her according to your lust, but she shall not be as you, her desires will not be as your desires, her needs will not be as your needs. She will torment you and have power upon you, and she shall be called Johanna.' So God gave Johanna to Amon and great was the strife between them, but her womb was bountiful and many were their children.”
They walked on to the next statue, another handsome man, but hunched and corrupted with a hungry, predatory look.
“This is Regis who fell from favour with God and was punished with the Curse of Regis. God corrupted his lust so that he could no longer lay with woman but craved the flesh of his own sex. Since that time God has used the Curse of Regis to punish many that offend him.”
“What you speak of is known to the Vasagi,” said Torrin, “but we have never called it a curse. It is just the way that some are made, and we do not punish them for it.”
“Then how badly the Vasagi need the guidance of the true church. To teach them of their sins and punish those that break God's commandments.”
“And what punishment do you make in God's name for those afflicted with this 'curse'?”
“That which is proscribed in the Text,” His Lordship shuddered slightly, “I do not like to even speak of it, read the Text and you shall see.”
They passed more statues of characters from the Text and His Lordship told tales of cities struck down in liquid fire, of plagues of blindness, of boils, warts and biting insects. Then they came to the first that were dressed in priest's robes.
“Comulus, scribe of the Text and founder of the church. Poisoned by Gratage, his successor, who was punished by God with a wasting disease. Then Sardel, who edited the Text for his own purposes and was executed, most unpleasantly, by Hyut, who restored the Text to the truth of God, with only minor amendments. He died a natural death, probably. Brytal had a long and prosperous reign as the first priest Emperor. He conquered the kingdom of Etor and founded the first city here. Sadly, he became obsessed with the Curse of Regis, suspecting and accusing many around him and condemning them to the punishment of the Text.”
They continued upwards passing a bare pedestal where only a pair of feet and half of one ankle remained. The statue had been broken away with angry hammer blows, the engraved name chiselled crudely into an unreadable scar on the fine marble.
“Who was that?” asked Torrin.
“One who fell from grace with the Synod,” said His Lordship.
“Who was he, what did he do?”
“It is not recorded, his name has been erased from history; a cautionary lesson to those who follow.”
They trudged on up the long ascent passing a score of statues. It seemed many had died violent deaths at the hands of their own church, or those of the enraged mob, maddened by their cruel despotism. Etoradom was a turbulent and dangerous place, whose history reeked with treachery, oppression and rebellion. As they neared the final stairway Torrin asked a question.
“Lord, where has your God gone?”
“What do mean, Vasagi? He is here always, He hears our voices, watches our deeds, knows the hidden truth within our hearts.”
“But we have walked up these stairs, Lord, through the passing time of your land and people. And at first he is there always, speaking from heaven, making the ground tremble with his words, reaching down to smite away the cities of those who displease him. And then we come to the Text and the founding of the church and then suddenly he is gone and the story is not his story but is that of those who preach and rule in his name.”
“Yes, because He appointed the church to serve Him. We enforce His will.”
“Not then, Lord, because the Texts are just stories, written long ago, with God made to fit man's image? For why should God set his own children upon each other, and love one son more than another? This is not the way of a father.”
His Lordship stopped on the staircase and spoke quietly to Torrin.
“Vasagi, be warned, blasphemy is punished most severely here. You will not talk of this again. And this you should also know before we enter the chamber; the Synod rules here by grace of the Emperor. You will not speak the name of any that serve upon the Synod, or reveal their station to others. This is the way of the church; a priest may know who commands him directly, but beyond that all knowledge is forbidden. The name of Vagis, or of Saloxe, is not known or spoken in the streets beneath and you shall tell none your master’s name, nor his station, nor his duties. Is this well understood?”
“Aye, Lord.”
They came at last to the final step and a door flanked by armed guards stood before them. One bowed in salute to His Lordship, gave Torrin a suspicious and contemptuous look, then admitted them to the Synod Chamber. It was quite unlike the dim lobby they had first entered, for it was high and filled with light. The three walls soared upwards to the vague, spider’s web of beams that made a distant lofty ceiling. Each wall had the many rows of tall, arched windows, one above another, rising to the full height of the chamber. Rays of light streamed in from the sunward side and were reflected on angled mirrors set upon the opposite walls, shining downwards in an illuminating flood. A captive sunbeam was contrived to shine on those below like a warm glow of endorsement and approval from God himself.
The Synod table was three sided and facing each edge was a row of seven thrones. Pillars rose from the corner of every throne, holding aloft intricately carved stone canopies that made jagged crowns. There was no softness or comfort in the chairs beneath, only cold stone slabs to make a seat. Somehow, impossibly, it seemed the table and the thrones around it had been chipped and shaped from a single a block of stone. The precise, ornate, carvings and flutings became cruder towards the floor, until they melded into the contours of a single, massive, roughly hewn slab.
Through the lowest tier of window arches the world beneath could be glimpsed. The city, extending like one half of a huge wheel, seemed to lay naked, held in the gaze of these eyes that never blinked. Even the world beyond, the distant mountains that disturbed the far horizon, the glittering river snaking away into obscurity, even these seemed strangely subservient. The Synod Chamber, set so high above the world, the great thrones carved from the one indivisible monolith, the flood of stolen sunlight, all these combined to make an indisputable proclamation: We are chosen. We are permanent. We are placed above you. This is, and ever shall be, the order of things.
All this impressed itself upon Torrin in a few short moments, as he followed His Lordship across the chamber, towards the Synod. A little gesture of his master’s fin
ger halted him, and he stood some paces back as His Lordship approached one corner of the table. Torrin focussed now on the figures that were seated upon the thrones. Most were old men with sour, wrinkled faces. Some were finely robed, others were dressed in dark modest vestments in accordance with the sect or order to which they belonged. Set alone, and facing one corner of the table was the only seat unoccupied, a throne much larger and more ornate than the others. Seated on the right hand of the empty throne was a man younger than the rest. The only papers and documents set upon the Synod table lay before him, and as the others spoke his quill dipped into an inkpot, then scratched its pattern of words upon a parchment. One of the Synod was speaking, an angry voice echoing in the high vaulted chamber.
“...more vigilance is required, we cannot afford to give any indication that our resolve is not absolute.”
The younger man paused his writing, raised a hand slightly, and the speaker was at once silent. Another little gesture, a nod towards another face which invited a new speaker to have his say.
“We should make the punishments public…”
The younger man gestured the speaker to silence and then spoke himself.
“And then we will have more anger and more rebellion to deal with. The heretics and rabble rousers must be dealt with swiftly and punished as the Text indicates, but in the Cloisters only.”
There were dark looks from those around him, an unspoken resentment that this man, barely half their age, should hold such authority over them.
“Eminencies,” he continued, “it is in troubled times that our Emperor most needs faithful and devout servants. And here before us is such a one. Holy Eminence Lord Vagis, Emissary of the Emperor High Priest, Canon of the Sacred Order of the Lord's Servants, we welcome you in God’s name.”
His Lordship gave a token bow of his head before speaking.
“Cardinal Saloxe, I congratulate you on your new station as Speaker and Recorder of the Synod.”
“I thank you, Lord Vagis, and we must offer our thanks for what you have delivered to our treasury. Am I to understand that your mission was successful in all other respects?”