by Devin Madson
Table of Contents
Character List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
The Gods of Vice
The Vengeance Trilogy Book 2
Devin Madson
Cloudburst Books
Copyright Devin Madson 2013
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
978 0 9923059 5 6 (epub)
978 0 9923059 4 9 (mobi)
Edited by Amanda J Spedding
Cover art by Viktor Fetsch
Cover Design by Isabelle Young
Map by John Renehan
eBook Formatting by Cohesion Editing and Proofreading
Cloudburst Books
P.O. Box 402 Bendigo Central
Bendigo, VIC 3552
Australia
For my loving husband.
You are my best friend. You are my rock.
Thank you for being there every step of the way along this mad journey.
Character List
Ts’ai
Honour is Wealth.
Emperor Kin Ts’ai - Emperor of Kisia
General Hade Ryoji - Master of the Imperial Guard
General Rini - General of the Rising Army
General Jikuko - General of the Rising Army
Father Kokoro - Court priest
Master Kenji - Imperial physician
Raijin - Kin’s brindle horse
Otako
We Conquer. You Bleed.
Emperor Lan Otako - Deceased. Eldest son
Emperor Tianto Otako - Deceased. Youngest son
Empress Li - Deceased. Mother to Hana and Takehiko
Emperor Katashi Otako ‘Monarch’ - Only son of Emperor Tianto
Hatsukoi - Katashi’s bow
Lady Hana Otako ‘Regent’ - Only living daughter of Emperor Lan
Tili - Lady Hana’s maid
Shin Metai - A Pike and Lady Hana’s protector
General Tan - Previously Captain Tan, Katashi’s second in command
The Traitor Generals - General Manshin, General Roi, General Tikita
Pikes - Wen, Tika, Tann, Bei, Yani
Laroth
Sight Without Seeing
Lord Nyraek Laroth - Deceased. Fifth Count of Esvar
‘Malice’ ‘Whoreson’ Laroth - Illegitimate son of Nyraek Laroth
Lord Darius Laroth - Legitimate heir of Nyraek Laroth. Sixth Count of Esvar
Lord Takehiko Otako ‘Endymion’ - Illegitimate son of Nyraek Laroth
Kaze - Endymion’s horse
Vices
Vice Without Virtue
Lady Kimiko Otako ‘Adversity’ - Katashi’s twin sister
Avarice - Once employed on the Laroth estate
Hope - Once Lord Arata Toi, heir to the Duke of Syan, now a Vice
Vices - Spite, Conceit, Ire, Folly, Apostasy, Parsimony
The greatest fight is the fight within
Against the nature of man
Against self
Against the god that lives inside us all
Chapter 1
It had been two days. Darius lay upon the divan, unmoving, unspeaking, his expression frozen in an infinitesimal frown. The rise and fall of his silk-clad chest was the only sign he lived at all, but sometimes even his breath seemed to abandon him. So I watched, afraid his death would go unnoticed.
Malice was restless. He had come only once since Katashi’s avowal, bringing Hope with him. For a long time the young Vice had sat with a hand upon Darius's cheek.
‘He is like you, Master,’ Hope had said at last. ‘I cannot get in.’
Malice had taken to his opium; the role of nurse didn’t suit him.
Avarice slid the door, a bowl of warm water in one hand and a bunch of fresh incense caught between two fingers of the other. I had come to rely on his ugly scowl; he and I alone in our anxiety. Beyond this room the world was changing, but here, there was just Darius. Avarice had given up ordering me out; the loyalty I showed his precious charge helping temper his dislike.
He put the bowl down, water slopping over the edge. ‘Anything?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
It had become our little ritual.
Avarice wrung out a cloth, and with an old carer’s practicality, he opened Darius’s robe, exposing fair skin to the sunlight. A scar marred his chest; a raised line, shiny and puckered. There, the knife had been thrust into his body, the pain such that I would not soon forget. Darius hadn’t meant to share it with me, or the memory that came with it, but in dropping his guard he had let me in.
The linen cloth sailed across Darius’s skin before being returned to the bowl. Avarice squeezed it out, water dripping from his sturdy fingers.
‘You looked after him, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘When Malice did that.’
For a moment the cloth paused in its passage across the scar. ‘Malice wouldn’t do that. He loves Master Darius.’
‘But not as much as you do?’
Avarice went on with his task. Birds sang out in the garden. A laundry maid laughed. Tongues of hot sunlight cut across the matting, bringing in the endless summer.
‘Yes.’ Avarice dropped the cloth into the water. ‘I looked after him. I’ve known Lord Laroth since he was a boy. I worked for his father, and when the late lord passed, I stayed with Master Darius.’
‘And now you serve Malice.’
He grunted as he rose, and I watched him stride across the room to change the incense. He lit fresh sticks before returning to flip the cushions beneath Darius’s head, fussing about him as though he were a little boy laid up ill. Avarice – friend, carer, father. Nyraek had not been there. He had been in Mei’lian fathering me.
The smell of sandalwood freshened the air, and still that porcelain face did not move.
‘Malice needs me,’ Avarice said. ‘Send a message if anything changes.’
I nodded and the man went out, leaving me with the half-brother I had never known I had. Many silent hours spent alone had given me the opportunity to stare at him from every angle, absorbing myself in his features as I tried to divine some similarity between us. I could see Malice in the way his brows arched and in the fine line of his nose, but while Malice looked more like the spider Katashi called him, Darius was a broken bird, his wings clipped to keep him from flying.
Darius’s chest rose and fell, and satisfied that he still lived, I went to the window. Avarice would never open it, but I had been sitting too long in
the close air waiting for a groan or a flutter, or anything that might herald my brother’s return. I needed to taste life.
With a grunt of effort, I forced the small window open. Humid air brushed my face, thick with the scent of dying flowers, and I breathed deeply. A storm was brewing to the east. Heavy clouds hung in the sky, flickering with summer lightning.
The castle had changed; its mood, its smell. Now it was Emperor Katashi’s men who patrolled the wall, their black sashes flying proudly. Beyond the gate a returning scout party was barely visible in the haze.
But out there another emperor still lived.
‘Endymion.’
I turned, heart jolting. The door was closed and the room empty but for Darius, blinking at me from the divan.
‘Darius.’ Three quick steps took me to his side and I sank to my knees. ‘You’re awake.’
‘Obviously.’ His voice crackled from disuse, the syllables running together. ‘Kin? Hana?’
‘Alive. Hana is here.’
‘And Kin?’ he asked, his fear no longer hidden.
‘Kimi– One of the Vices got him out before Katashi could have his head. I know nothing else.’
He closed his eyes, a sigh brushing dry lips. ‘It is enough for now.’
A long silence followed, and I thought him asleep until he gathered enough strength to open his eyes again. ‘He’s here, isn’t he?’ he said. ‘I can smell him.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were my brother?’
His gaze did not waver. ‘When would you have liked me to tell you? When I found you locked up in Shimai? Or when you came here to kill me?’
‘I didn’t come to kill you.’
‘Just to teach me the meaning of pain.’
I had been so full of vengeance that night, so tainted by the fire that leaked from Katashi’s pores I could almost believe he had poisoned my mind. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Are you?’ His lip curled. ‘Sorry for me or for you?’
‘For getting you into this. It’s my fault you’re stuck here.’ I swallowed hard. ‘You’re afraid of him, aren’t you? Of Malice?’
‘Of course I’m afraid of him.’ Darius struggled to sit, his brows caught close. ‘If you had one iota of sense you would be petrified out of your wits, but no, there you sit, calmly bearing his mark upon your heart. Do you know what happens to Empaths who lose themselves?’
‘No. Who should have told me? I never met an Empath before Malice. I never knew I was a Laroth.’
A horse whinnied loudly outside the window, and turning my head I caught the sounds of shouts and marching steps. One hundred and thirty-four soldiers in the courtyard, and forty-one on the walls; a scout party of six at the gate; two peasant boys collecting wood in the forest. And stretching the miles toward Koi City, one hundred and fifty-two thousand, nine hundred and twenty-one souls waking to a new world. The numbers were in my head just as the light of each stood like a flame before my eyes.
‘Endymion?’
I shook away the haze. Darius was waiting for an answer, and with difficulty I brought my mind back to the room.
‘What?’
‘What? Where did you just go?’
‘I was thinking,’ I said. ‘Did you even know I existed?’
Darius took a moment to reply, his shrewd gaze peering through half-closed eyes. ‘I knew Takehiko existed, but I neither knew for sure you were alive or that you were my half-brother. You know that makes you Hana’s half-brother, too.’ He laughed weakly. ‘What fools our parents were to make such a mess. A Laroth-Otako bastard. I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you.’
‘Malice knows.’
‘Of course he knows. I told him. And now you’re his, he will find a way to put you to good use. You idiot. Did you really think he would give you something for nothing? Or that revenge against me was worth your sacrifice?’
‘You told him?’
‘Don’t worry, I didn’t want to. I’m not that much your enemy.’
‘Why are you different? I can feel you now.’
Darius didn’t answer, nor did his expression change – his mastery over it as strong as his mastery over his Empathy had been. With the strength of steel, he had buried it so deep even I could not find it. Not for him, the intrusion into the minds of others; not for him, the weight of every thought and emotion like the fleeting touch of a thousand hands. Freedom. It had been his and it could be mine.
‘It seems that we’re in this together,’ I said. ‘If you help me, maybe I can help you.’
‘You can’t help me,’ he said. ‘You can’t help yourself.’ Darius pressed a hand to his forehead, fingers trembling. ‘Go away,’ he said. ‘Go make yourself useful. I’m parched and starving.’
‘You think I’m weak, but I’m not, I–’
‘I don’t think you’re weak, I think you’re stupid and arrogant,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how dangerous you are. The true heir to the throne is an Empath, and you’ve given yourself to Malice. Kisia is already lost.’
The mark upon my heart seemed to writhe at the sound of its name, like a snake buried beneath my ribs.
‘I think we are both beyond help,’ Darius said, lying back upon the divan. ‘Go fetch food and water. I don’t think Katashi wants his prisoner to starve.’
‘Yes, of course. You’ll feel better after some food.’ I got to my feet, the skirt of my simple robe crumpled, my stomach hollow. I couldn’t remember when I had last eaten.
Outside, the passage was empty and I took a moment to breathe the silence. Despite the number of people who lived within its walls, the Keep was often quiet, its worn floors and faded screens encouraging whispers. It was a warren of dead-end corners and narrow halls, of dark beams and blackened posts. It was a symbol of old power, of Otako power, every sign of Ts’ai occupation already scrubbed from its innards. The pile of Ts’ai banners had burned slowly, sending billows of black smoke into the air. Papers and books had gone the same way, saddle cloths, tea sets and bone-handled knives, anything bearing the dragon Katashi had come to hate so much. Scrolls had been torn down, murals repainted, even carvings hacked to oblivion.
Avarice came around the corner hunched like a bear, his hooded tunic fraying around the edges.
‘What happened?’
‘He just woke,’ I said. ‘He wants food and drink.’
The relief was immense, filling the pool of emotion that always lapped around me, tugging at my attention. Avarice grinned. It lasted only a moment before his grim look snapped back. ‘Go to the kitchens,’ he ordered. ‘Tea, green pear, plain rice and mild fish, very thinly sliced.’
‘Why should I go?’ I demanded. ‘I'm not a servant. I’m a lord.’
The Vice glared at me. ‘Watch yourself, Endymion,’ he growled. ‘Takehiko Otako is a dead man. Dead men take orders from everyone.’
He strode past me and I cringed as I heard the door to Darius’s room slide back, closing again on the gentle murmur of voices. It had been a stupid thing to say, and I was glad to be occupied. It kept me grounded in the world where my feet walked. If I let my Empathy wander it would pull me out onto the walls for a sullen guard change, or into the upper chambers where fear hung heavy amid whispering men. Nowhere was safe.
I entered the lower Keep in search of the kitchens and found the ghost of Katashi walking at my side, black-clad, his hair dripping moat water. I had known the outcome, yet I had helped him anyway, seeking my own revenge. Now screams filled the castle. Out in the main yard the scaffold dripped blood, glistening in the bright sunlight. I had lost count, the numbers of the dead impossible to divine amid the souls of the living.
Having fulfilled my mission, I returned to the Court Floor, pausing a moment at the landing where Katashi and I had parted that night. Here I had stood and told him how to bypa
ss Kin’s guards, and now it was Katashi’s men moving about the Keep; guards, courtiers and servants on their new emperor’s business.
‘That’s him.’
I turned in the direction of the voice. At the head of a group of guards, Captain Tan swaggered toward me, clean-shaven, neat, no longer the unkempt Pike following at his master’s heels. A general’s surcoat covered his armour, but over his smugness hung a certain malicious expectation.
‘Looking for me, Captain?’ I said.
‘I’m a general now,’ he returned, a hand resting on the purple sash he wore beneath his black. ‘You should show more respect.’
‘I respect men who deserve respect, Captain,’ I said. He had delivered Kimiko to Malice. He had made no attempt to change Katashi’s mind. He had let the madness happen. ‘Was there something you wanted?’
One of the men behind him snarled and reached for his sword, but Tan held up his hand. ‘No, leave him be. His Majesty wants to talk to him, and you can’t talk to a corpse.’
‘Which Majesty?’
Tan grinned. ‘You think you’re clever? Wittier men than you have found their heads skewered of late. You should be careful what you say.’ He motioned in the direction of the throne room. ‘Emperor Katashi wants to talk to you.’
Knowing refusal was pointless, I fell in beside him, our steps out of time as they clacked along the passage. Tan’s guards followed close, burning their disgust into the back of my head. I knew none of them, but they all knew me.
Stinking Vices. The Usurper was too weak to get rid of them, just let them grow like weeds.