“Get used to it, Mari. You’ve much to atone for, and I’m sure Khurshad won’t tell anybody if I play with you a little.”
“You’re dead men” Mari promised.
They dragged her away, her arms burning with the pain.
Rather than a cabin, they locked her in a narrow cupboard that was too small, too cold, and too dark. But she was not a little girl anymore.
“I AM, I DO, AND MAKE NEITHER APOLOGY NOR COMPROMISE, FOR I AM THE EMPEROR OF THE KNOWN WORLD AND NONE STAND ABOVE ME.”
—Vane-ro-men of the Men-da Troupe, last of the Petal Emperors (2235th Year of the Petal Empire)
DAY 360 OF THE 495TH YEAR OF THE SHRĪANESE FEDERATION
Corajidin looked at himself in the mirror. The lines around his eyes made him look tired, where Vashne had seemed both intelligent and wise. The grey in his hair made him look old, where on Ariskander it had looked distinguished and noble. The layers of his clothing, in ruby and gold stitched red and black damask, made him look haughty, where his father had looked a ruler of the world.
The time had almost come for him to take that for which he had fought, lied, and murdered. But the prospect of how much he still had to do, to guide his nation to where he needed it to be, seemed such a long and perilous road. More so than the one he had followed to get here.
He was reminded of the vision he had been granted in Wolfram’s quarters, where the ancient spirit trapped in a mystic carpet had said, You will know power, though for the children there will be naught…
Corajidin stole a glance at Kasraman, who was joking with Belamandris while Wolfram smiled his secretive smile behind his jagged beard. Despite his success, doubt weighed on him like a rusted old anchor being dragged through the mud. Was this is a mistake? Was he doomed to fail and be toppled by another, just as he had toppled those who came before him?
“You’re better than all of them, Jidi,” Yashamin’s voice hummed across his soul.
“I do this for us, my love,” Corajidin said.
“Father?” Belamandris asked, puzzlement on his face. His golden son leaned elegantly against the wall, the darker Kasraman seeming somehow cruder by comparison, as if the light loved and lingered on the younger, while merely touching the elder, of his sons.
“The light shines on them the same as your love does,” Yashamin murmured from nowhere and everywhere. “I loved the way it shone on me.”
“We’ve not much time, Father,” Kasraman said urgently, “if we’re to meet the Emissary at the sycamore grove before the Coronation.”
“Yes… the Coronation,” Corajidin drew the words out. The past two days had been chaotic with rumours of secret meetings of political cabals. Ajomandyan had been evasive, the Arbiter of the Change giving only the most perfunctory of attention to what should have been the most splendid day of the past five years. “Did she explain to you where she was, when we needed her most?”
“She was at the Mahsojhin, Father,” Kasraman assured. “Some of the details she provided, when I questioned her about it, were too accurate for her not to have been there. The Emissary was true to your cause. She freed the witches—”
“Not all of them,” Wolfram said tiredly, still recovering from the energies he had used in binding the daemon elementals. Kimiya had fared worse, barely able to rise from her bed until an hour ago. She curled at Wolfram’s feet, wan, with circles under her eyes vivid as bruises. “There are still hundreds trapped, and after the fight with the Sēq we don’t have the energy to open another rift. And the Sēq took the Emphis Mechanism, too.”
“Then we’ll work with what we have.” Kasraman rested his hand on Wolfram’s shoulder in a way he had never done with his father. Corajidin scowled at the intimacy of the gesture, then let his pique go when he looked at Belamandris, thankful his golden son was with him.
But it was Belamandris who frowned, clearly considering his words before he spoke.
“Father, are you sure this is the… right, thing to do?” Belamandris sounded hesitant, frightened, and apprehensive. Kasraman and Wolfram remained silent, watching. “Our people vilified the Empress-in-Shadows for interfering with the hallowed dead, and you’re going to do the same. Please, take the time to think about this! The truth is—”
“Truth and fact. Justice and law. Morals and ethics. One is subjective and the other objective. Our behaviour is driven by society, upbringing and history. But what of our nature, as opposed to nurture? There have been many truths tested of late, my son. Perhaps others should also be challenged?
“Besides, a great leader sets the tone others would follow.”
“But to start your reign as Asrahn with this…” Belamandris shook his head.
“You would deny Father this?” Kasraman folded his arms across his chest as he looked down at his half-brother. Corajidin was surprised and touched by Kasraman’s support. “Belam, she was taken away from Father before her time. And given what we’ve experienced of late, the alliances we’ve made and the help we’ve received, perhaps we need to rethink our notions?”
“This is an abomination!” Belamandris’s voice sounded strangled. “Our revered dead dwell in the love of those who have gone before, content in the Well of Souls. It’s always been this way! Father, please, let her go and don’t become that which you’ve always held in contempt.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Kasraman said. “How could you?”
“Understand?” Belamandris glared at Kasraman. When he spoke his voice was very soft. “I understand full well what it’s like to be wrenched away from the peace of my Ancestors, brother. Not so long ago, I lingered on the lip of the Well and, truth be told, would’ve been content to fall in. But I was brought back, whether I would or not. Now, you are going to wrench her away from somewhere she is no doubt happy, and safe. Please. Leave her be.”
Corajidin came forward and embraced his son, holding him close.
“Enough of such talk!” Corajidin said gently. “We are a family and it was the power of our love for you that kept you tied to the land of the living. You must have wanted to live, too, or else I would have lost you. The times are changing. If we are to set an example, we need to change with them.”
“But is it the right example you’re setting?”
Corajidin steepled his fingers, looking across their peaks of his fingertips at his sons. “Belamandris, I do what I do because I think it’s time we challenged some of that which has gone on faith. Take for example our blind acceptance of Sēq superiority? Did we not disprove that myth? As for the hallowed dead? It seems to me, my sons, that they are no more, or no less, kind or malevolant than any living person.
“So is this the right example?”—Corajidin smiled, though it did not feel like it had the enthusiasm, or belief, that such a momentous event deserved—“I think so. I hope so.”
“Then is your doubt not enough?” Belamandris asked quietly, his gaze searching. “Father, so much has happened to our nation. To our people. Perhaps a little more caution, a little more reserve, may not go astray?”
“Leave him be, Belam!” Kasraman’s voice was stern, but not unkind. “We’ve neither experienced the loss, nor the challenges, that Father has. Let him have this, and trust in he who has guided us this far.”
Corajidin took both his sons in an embrace, and held them close. He kissed them both on the cheek, fuelled for the first time by pride in them both.
“Forget your quarrel and remember you are brothers. Now, escort me to the sycamore grove of the Mahsojin so the Emissary can do what needs to be done.”
“Father,”—Belamandris gripped Corajidin’s arm in a painful grip—“don’t.” Clearly he had not been swayed by Corajidin’s words earlier. “This can’t be what you want for the future. Or for her.”
“Tell them Jidi!” Yashamin urged. “When the Emissary asked, you said you wanted it all. I was so proud of you. Now you can have it. The world is ours, my heart of hearts. I would feel again.”
“It is,” Corajid
in said, hoping his voice didn’t betray his apprehension.
“Then let’s begin,” the Emissary said in her rusted croak. Hood thrown back, her once austere beauty pallid and cold, marred by blackened veins across her skin. Her mindstone was dull, a flat thumbprint the colour of moss on her brow. She waved and three tiny figures began leading a taller fourth, her body barely concealed by her light robe of burgundy gossamer, sparkling with blood stones.
Corajidin leaned back in his weathered camp throne, trepidation weighing his limbs. They were on a hill overlooking the Mahsojhin. Giant sycamores clattered and creaked, crotchety old men complaining of age. Beams of almost coherent light made pillars under the canopy, igniting pollen and spiralling leaves as they fell. It made ever-changing patterns on the mulchy ground. The swollen, humid air sheathed him in sweat. The odour of rot was almost overwhelming.
On the truncated cliff below, the Mahsojhin seemed more forlorn than it had been. Some of the buildings that had survived the centuries had been flattened by the Sēq. Red-robed bodies lay fallen like autumn leaves between stiff fronds of yellowed grass. Small clouds of flies swarmed, their buzzing a distant, somnolent drone. Where the three crones walked, the flies fell from the air to land still, like so many pieces of gravel.
The creaking of callipers became louder than the creaking of branches. The faint scent of musk, iron, and leather. Corajidin watched tall Wolfram emerge from the shadows, as he so often seemed to do. He bowed his head, causing his matted fringe to sway. His old stave, which had seen much better days, groaned and bent under his weight.
“Was it not the Imrean philosopher, Atticus Sorigo, who wrote, Tell a lie large enough and all the world will believe?” the witch asked musingly. “And you’ve made the lie large indeed, Asrahn.”
“And told the world.” A thrill went through Corajidin at the name. Asrahn. “But for how long will they believe, Wolfram? How long before the jackals start to pick apart the body and find the taste of the lies not to their liking?”
Wolfram stared down through his brindle fringe, eyes burning a fierce yellowed hazel. The witch smiled, a tear in the iron-grey matt of his beard. His teeth and lips were moist with spittle. “Once you’ve a crown on your head, what does the warhorse need to fear of carrion dogs?”
“Were it only so simple,” he murmured, transfixed as the three tiny crones shuffled past, eyes stitched closed, twisted nails clicking together like insect mandibles. A fine yellow dust clouded their skin and swirled in the air around them. Through the translucent robe and hood, the woman they led was a work of art, a burnished treasure that made Corajidin’s hearts pound.
The Emissary stood before Corajidin. “You understand the consequences of what you’re about to do?”
“Who is she?” he asked, staring at the woman.
“Until this moment, nobody of consequence.” She snapped her fingers, bringing him back to attention. “Corajidin, you must answer me. Do you understand the consequences?”Corajidin swallowed and nodded.
“No! Aloud, so Īa and the powers I serve can bear witness.”
“Yes,” he whispered. At the disdainful turn of her lip he said more loudly, “Yes! I understand the consequences of what I’m about to do.”
“You’re asking ancient powers for their help,” Wolfram reminded. “You’ve asked of them before. But they get… hungrier, more demanding, each time. You must sacrifice this time.”
“Can not another…“Corajidin’s skin crawled at the thought of what he would endure, a litany of horrors in the absence of fact.
The Emissary’s laugh sounded like rusty nails being rattled in a jar. “It’s the webs of your own life you want changed. Scataqra, the Weaver of Fates, demands something from you—not another. If you’re unwilling—”
“Erebus curse you!” Corajidin spat. Scataqra. The name chilled him… but he was too close. “I’ll do what you want.”
“Of course you will.” Her voice was flat. “It’s always been thus. You just needed to admit it.”
The Emissary walked into the shadows of the sycamores, Corajidin, his sons, and Wolfram following. With each step, Corajidin found it harder and harder to breathe, as if the ancient boles of the sycamores were stealing the air from his lungs. He looked upward, his eyes dazzled by the glitter of a too-bright sun in a too-distant sky, where it poked its face from behind waving leaf shadows.
The Emissary wove this way and that between the dark trunks. Figs, fallen from the trees like dull orange jewels, had gone rotten in the light-starved grasses and leaf mulch. Soon, the sunlight world beyond the trees was a memory. Replaced by something older. Something darker, unrepentant, and glowering.
Without a word, the Emissary stopped. Before them was a tree whose trunk was psoriatic, discoloured with dried gold sap turned red as rust. The lower branches looked frail, their creaking little more than the whispers of a dying matriarch too long in her bed. Spiderwebs hung like gauze curtains, their silk desiccated, dotted with the remains of generations of previous inhabitants and the cracked ivory of bleached egg sacs.
Wolfram poked at the dry earth with the jagged butt of his staff. The soil lifted in pathetic, listless clouds before falling back to the ground. He kept digging at the earth until he had hollowed out a deep bowl in the dirt.
“Kneel here, Asrahn,” Wolfram said, pointing at the ground in front of the hole he had dug. Corajidin felt a protest rise to his lips, yet there was something in the witch’s tone that accepted neither argument, nor excuse. Sharp twigs and pieces of stone dug into his knees as he lowered himself to the ground.
A knife was dropped on the ground in front of him. A long silver blade curved nearly to the point of being a sickle. It had an ivory hilt carved with leaves and flowers, stained black. Wolfram knelt beside him. He hissed with pain as he forced his ruined legs to bend in the confines of the callipers, but there was no hesitation in his movements. Reaching into a robe, which had seen better times, the witch removed a small crystal vial of the Emissary’s potion. He unstoppered the vial and held it out to Corajidin, who took it with a strong hand. Now that he had embarked on this course of action, Corajidin would not be unmanned.
The crones guided the unknown woman to her knees. She swayed, her expression dreamy, the veil over her face billowing gently with her breath.
“What you ask for is not unnatural, though your people believe otherwise,” the Emissary said, crouching in the dirt beside Corajidin. Belamandris swore, kicking a small cloud of mulch into the air. The Emissary looked up at the changing patterns of the leaves, head cocked to one side, as if listening to something only she could hear. “The web that is woven links every soul, every mind, and every dream. All things are connected, then, now, and forever. The vessels we inhabit are crude things, easily broken. Why not as easily replaced? If the Weaver and her children do not discriminate, what gives mortals the right?”
Corajidin nodded. He raised the vial to his lips. He could smell nothing more than summer rain and the scent of sunshine on a cat’s fur. Downing the draught in one gulp, the rahn gasped as the fluid filled him with rapturous energy.
“Cut!” the Emissary thundered.
Before he knew what he was doing, Corajidin had taken the knife and sliced deeply across his forearms. Blood coursed down his arms, black in the strangled light of the sycamores. It trickled from Corajidin’s fingers, into the bowl of hollowed earth at his knees. Belamandris muttered a curse. Kasraman’s expression remained closed, his gaze intent.
The pain of the wounds was excruciating. Worse than any battle wound, the cuts scalded as if they bled acid. Corajidin was about to pull his arms back when Wolfram held them in place. He struggled in the other man’s grip.
When Corajidin looked up, the Emissary’s eyes shone with madness. Her mindstone flared into emerald life.
“Not yet! More—you must give more!” she whispered urgently.
Corajidin choked back a cry of anguish. The pain was too much! He could feel the blood scalding his skin. Cou
ld hear his own hearts labouring with the strain of his agony, his pulse hammering in his ears. Could feel the sweat beading his brow, before it trickled hot down his face. He threw his head back, breath hissing between his teeth.
When he opened his eyes, he saw other silhouettes crawling across the bright places between the leaves and limbs of the sycamores. At first he thought they were walking across thin air. His eyes adjusted, and he saw in fact that they were making their way across fine threads. They moved with lazy purpose, deliberate and precise. Their bodies were lean and hungry. Their legs long and barbed. From time to time sunlight would lance through the canopy, reflecting from the clusters of their beaded eyes.
Their grotesque march spiralled inwards towards the twisted trunk of the decrepit sycamore.
Down.
Down.
Down they came to crawl amongst the whorls of bark and the exposed roots of the old tree until they crept—silently, terrifyingly—in their scores to where Corajidin knelt.
“Do nothing!” Wolfram warned the others. Spiders crawled across him. Through his hair. Along his beard. Over the swollen knuckles of his long-fingered hands.
En masse they crawled to the edge of the blood-filled bowl to drink their fill. They scuttled atop each other, legs waving. A seething, furred mass of fangs and bodies. Corajidin wanted to retch. From the corner of his eye he saw Belamandris, poised, hand caressing Tragedy’s hilt, while Kasraman stood apart, taking everything in.
Their thirst sated, the weavers made their way—bloated—back to the sycamore. They heaved their rounded bodies upward, vanishing amongst the waving leaves and torn curtains of web.
Corajidin felt faint from blood loss. His vision contracted. Light, shadow, all else faded into the stark contrast. Time contracted. It felt as if moments disappeared, or were stolen. Time stuttered. Became seemingly haphazard, scattered, rather than serial moments, one after another.
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