by David Hair
ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, PONTUS
Norostein, Noros, on the continent of Yuros
Noveleve 927
8 months until the Moontide
Noveleve brought the first flurries of snow to the streets of Norostein, making the cobbles treacherous. The Alps to the south turned wholly white and the clouds closed in. Buckets of water iced up and fires billowed smoke as frigid wind swirled through cracks and crannies. The watchmen wrapped thick woollen scarves about their helms and huddled around braziers warming their hands and sipping from flasks of brandy. The bitter winds brought illness, streaming noses and hacking coughs. Every day someone else was found dead in the shanties on the northern side, usually a rake-thin homeless child who had given up and lain down to die.
Each morning the recruits for the Crusade marched down to the stableyards on the Lukhazan road, singing hymns. There were thousands of them, practising with spear, sword and bow. Some days Alaron and Ramon went to watch. The young recruits stared at them curiously, but stayed away, their eyes filled with something between resentment and awe. Magi were far above the common soldier.
This morning they had a different errand, visiting Alaron’s mother in her country manor. His father had lent them horses. The town woke, summoned to the dawn service by sonorous bells, as they wound their way through the streets. Outside the city walls the ground was white and the hills merged seamlessly with the clouds until it felt like they were moving inside a smoky white bubble. Sound travelled for miles, from the axe-blows of the woodcutters on the high slopes to the calls of the farmhands herding their beasts. Crows cawed as they hunted and squirrels chattered from the branches of ice-encrusted trees.
Ramon puffed warm breath over his hands, sending steamy clouds into the air. ‘Mater-Luna, it is cold. I should be in bed, not sitting on this bastard horse.’ He glared at Alaron. ‘It’s all your fault.’
‘You didn’t have to come,’ Alaron replied. ‘I owe Mother a visit, now the exams are over. And I seem to recall you saying how nice it would be to go for a ride, so how good of me to arrange it for you!’
‘Yes, but I was talking about that barmaid last night.’ Ramon smirked. ‘She was flirting with me, I swear.’
Alaron rolled his eyes. ‘Gina Weber is prettier.’
Ramon’s mouth twitched. ‘Coming round, are you?’
Alaron shrugged. ‘Everyone is treating it like a done deal, and I don’t appear to have a say in it so I might as well look on the bright side.’
‘Welcome to the real world,’ said Ramon. ‘I’ve probably already been sold off by my village. I’ll arrive home and be married the next day. At least she’ll be Rimoni, not some big fat northern milkmaid with a butt like the rear-end of a cow.’
Alaron gave him what he hoped was a steely look. ‘Better that than a scrawny Silacian twig.’ They glared, then grinned at each other. ‘Anyway, Mother’s housekeeper Gretchen bakes honey-cakes on Freyadai. We should arrive just as they come out of the oven.’
‘Okay, you have my interest again.’
‘Do Silacians keep their brains in their belly?’ laughed Alaron. ‘Hey, listen, Father says the emperor himself is at his Winter Court in Bricia – that’s only a few days’ ride north of us, isn’t it, just across the border. Governor Vult is there too, he said, everyone important – even Empress-Mother Lucia.’ He made the sign of Kore.
‘They’re all thieves and murderers,’ sniffed Ramon, who liked to say outrageous things.
‘Not the Empress-Mother,’ asserted Alaron. ‘She’s a living saint! Everyone loves her.’
‘You’re such an innocent! It never ceases to amaze me: it’s only a few years since the Revolt, and yet you Noromen still believe such shit. Living saints – ha! We Silacians do not forget that Lucia Fasterius probably murdered her husband, changed the succession so that her favourite son wrongfully became emperor and has been virtual ruler ever since. We Rimoni have not got such short memories!’ He tapped the side of his skull. ‘Near my village there’s this valley where a Fire-mage trapped a Rimoni centurion and his men in the trees and burnt them all alive. The ground is still ash-black. My village might have a Kore church, but there are Sollan drui in the forest who keep the old hallows.’
‘It was an amazing feat though,’ Alaron mused, ‘to conquer all of Yuros with three hundred magi.’
‘Three Hundred Ascendants,’ Ramon corrected him. ‘That’s enough power to burn the Sun! Don’t forget, the Rimoni legions had no cavalry or archers then, they just threw javelins – fat lot of good that would be against a flying Ascendant two hundred feet above. It would’ve been like a turkey-hunt. These days there’s better armour, better weaponry and better tactics, and the Ascendants are all dead or senile and drooling into bibs.’
Alaron threw up his hands and laughed. ‘I would just love it if you said these things in class. Can you imagine Mistress Yune if you did? The old battle-axe would turn purple.’
‘I didn’t want to get thrown out until I had completed,’ sniffed Ramon.
‘It’ll all be over next week,’ Alaron said with a grin. ‘Graduation – I can’t wait!’
‘Si, that’s the only thing keeping me here. Just give me a periapt and I’ll leave gratefully. Even if they don’t, I’ll get hold of one. You can get anything in Silacia.’
‘But if you don’t graduate they’ll not give you licence to use the gnosis!’
‘Who’d know? The Rondians never come to my village. They all live in legion camps, and the nearest is forty miles away from where I live. There are so few Rimoni magi – even if I don’t graduate I’ll be treated like a king at home.’ He looked at Alaron. ‘What about you, amici? You going to be a good boy, marry Gina and work for your father?’
Alaron sighed. ‘I don’t know yet. Maybe I impressed one of the recruiters? My Auntie Elena was a Volsai – perhaps they might want me too.’
Ramon screwed up his nose. ‘You don’t want to be one of those bastido, Al. There’s only one thing we hate more than a legion battle-mage and that’s a sneaking Volsai, scrying out secrets and locking up people to torture and blackmail. If those fellators offer you a job, you tell them where to shove it.’
‘Aunt Elena isn’t like that – she was a Grey Fox.’
‘Then she’s the only decent Volsai there ever was.’
Presently they entered the woods about Anborn Manor. He’d been born here, lived here the first eight years of his life, tended by a nurse and then a private tutor while his father was off trading. His mother would lie abed, or sit propped in a chair. She was always in pain from badly healed wounds. Her face was drawn, her scarred hands like the claws of a gargoyle. Her ruined eye-sockets were empty, though she could still see by using the gnosis. He’d always found it unsettling, the way her scarred sockets followed him sometimes.
His parents’ marriage had disintegrated gradually. Father always said she had been a laughing, vibrant young woman once, when he’d fallen in love with her, even though she was magi and he was just a soldier, captain of the squad assigned to protect her. Though the Crusade had been cruel to her, leaving her burned and broken, Father had stayed loyal to her, and soon after their marriage Alaron had been born. For a time they had been something like happy, then Tesla had turned back into herself, tormented by her disfigurement. Her screaming used to wake the whole house as she unconsciously set the bed linen alight, tortured by nightmares of dark faces closing in. During the daytime she was bleak and bitter, taking it all out on Vann. It had seemed to the young Alaron that she was trying to drive her husband away, despite all he’d done for her. He didn’t understand her, and neither did Vann. Father had taken Alaron and moved into their current house in Norostein when he couldn’t bear it any more, leaving Tesla behind in the Manor with servants to tend her. He paid, and Auntie Elena sent money whenever she could. Alaron sometimes suspected his father had never forgiven himself for not staying.
Alaron had only met his Aunt Elena a few times. She was a curt, hard-faced w
oman with a dancer’s body. Last time she’d questioned him at length over his skills, listened blank-faced to his statements about what was and wasn’t fair in the world and then lost interest. She was no friend of his father’s either – he’d heard them arguing after he was sent to bed. He hadn’t seen her for four years, but at least she kept the money coming.
The woods were tangled and dank, the trees choked with twisted vines and ivy. Crows were the only birds that thrived, and their harsh cawing grated on the boys. Then Anborn Manor suddenly loomed out of the trees, revealed in all its dilapidated glory. The lawns had degenerated into matted clumps thick with frost and the pond was covered in black ice. There were broken shutters and missing roof tiles, and dead moss blackened the walls. The whole edifice looked as if it were slowly tumbling down. A single wisp of smoke rose from one of the many chimneys, blue-grey against the stark sky.
‘Look, there’s Gretchen,’ said Alaron, pointing to Mother’s housekeeper, his old nurse, who was lifting an armload of firewood. She was wrapped in a faded red blanket that was stained with ash and dirt. Her hair was white as the frost.
‘Master Alaron,’ she wheezed, ‘come in, come in – I’m about to open the oven.’
After they’d tethered the horses beside an old stone water trough and kicked a hole in the ice Alaron hugged Gretchen. Ramon offered to rub the animals down while Alaron helped her with the wood. She has to be sixty by now, he thought with a faint chill. She’d aged badly these past few years.
Alaron found his mother in her old rocker in the sitting room, wrapped in a blanket. She cringed at the sound of the door opening. He had once seen an oil painting of her, done before she left for Hebusalim: she’d been a vibrant, redheaded beauty, like a robin dancing in the sunlight. Her hair was grey now, and her eyeless face ghastly.
‘It’s me, Ma.’ He went up to her and kissed her forehead. She smelled of confinement and old age. He backed away quickly and found a seat.
‘So, you’ve finally remembered you have a mother, eh?’ Her voice rasped like sandpaper.
‘You know I had exams, Mother. They finished last week.’
‘Did you?’ she said, with little interest. ‘All grown up now, eh? Off to fight the rag-heads, are you?’
‘I don’t know yet. Father wants me to work with him.’
‘Better that than war, boy. I should know, shouldn’t I?’ She clenched and unclenched her ruined hands. The healers had tried to repair them, but they were near-useless.
‘Everyone is going—’
‘Let them go – they’re all fools. Let ’em all burn. You stay whole and safe, boy, that’s my advice, take it or leave it.’ She scowled. ‘Is Vann still trying to pawn you off on that self-important little Weber girl?’
‘Uh, yes.’
‘Huh. Don’t waste yourself on her, boy. Do I hear your thieving Silacian friend outside?’
‘Uh, yeah. Um, the governor was at the exams. For the first part, anyway.’
‘Belonius rukking Vult?’ She leaned forward. ‘Silk-mouthed piece of dung sold us all down the river at Lukhazan. I wouldn’t trust him to tend piglets.’
Alaron gave up trying to have a normal conversation and looked about. The windows were so dirty you couldn’t see through them. Heat radiated from the overloaded fireplace. He wished he’d never come, just like always.
Finally Ramon came in, flushed from seeing to the horses. ‘Good morning, Lady Tesla. There’s a windship over the valley, flying in from the northeast. Is there a shipping lane through here now?’
‘No, they all swing north of here and take the Kedron Valley into Bricia. They must have a blind navigator.’ She sneered bitterly.
‘Come and see, Al,’ said Ramon. ‘I reckon it’s one of the Norostein fleet.’ They excused themselves quickly. ‘How is she?’ Ramon whispered.
‘Good,’ Alaron replied. ‘In one of her better moods.’ It was true: she hadn’t sworn at him yet, or called him an ungrateful wretch.
Outside, they shaded their eyes and squinted at the silhouette making its way towards the Manor. ‘What are they doing?’ Alaron wondered aloud. ‘There’s nothing out here. They’re going to be dragging their keel through the woods if they don’t get some lift.’ He squinted. ‘Look, that’s a landing signal,’ he added in surprise, pointing to a rigger waving a pennant.
‘Rukka mio, it is too!’ Ramon exclaimed.
The shadow of the windship fell over them and a huge anchor plummeted from the hull, its chain rattling. The anchor struck the turf, gouging the lawn until it bit and dragged the ship to a halt. Shouting men furled the sails, ladders were thrown down and a squad of soldiers descended, led by a sergeant. ‘We’re looking for Lady Tesla Anborn,’ he said. ‘Does she dwell here?’
‘Yes sir,’ said Alaron quickly, trying to make a good impression. ‘She’s inside. I’m her son.’
The sergeant was an older man with a bristly stubble and heavy jowls. He seemed friendly enough. ‘Vann’s boy, eh? My name’s Harft – I know your Da.’ He called up to the windship. ‘This is the place, Grand-Magister, and she’s in.’
‘Excellent.’ A mage leapt lightly from the side of the windship and floated some thirty yards to the ground, his control immaculate. He was middle-aged, balding and sleekly plump, dressed in rich red and gold clothing, with an iron chain about his neck: a council mage. Alaron thought he recognised him from the city, though he couldn’t recall the name. ‘Who are these boys, Harft?’
‘I’m Alaron Mercer, sir,’ Alaron said. ‘This is my friend Ramon Sensini. We’re student magi, sir.’
The council mage took in Ramon’s foreign name and looks with a narrowing of the eyes. He looked at Alaron. ‘My business here is with your mother,’ he said brusquely. ‘It is council business.’
Alaron wondered what on Urte it could be. ‘My mother is an invalid, sir. I’ll take you to her.’
The council mage shrugged. ‘Very well. Your friend can wait here. I am Grand-Magister Eli Besko. You’ll have heard of me.’ He strode towards the house. Alaron threw a worried glance at Ramon, then hurried after him. The sergeant grunted and followed.
Grand-Magister Besko paused to allow Alaron to open the door for him and then strode into the house, ignoring Gretchen. ‘Show me to Lady Anborn,’ he ordered, and Alaron felt a coil of anger at the man’s manner, Grand-Magister or not. But he did as he was told.
The sergeant came in behind, throwing an apologetic look at Gretchen.
Tesla Anborn stiffened as Alaron opened the door to the sitting-room. ‘Mother, there is a council mage here. He says that—’
Besko interrupted. ‘My name is Grand-Magister Eli Besko. You will know of me.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Besko? Found an office job during the Revolt, I recall. Yes, I remember you, Eli Besko. How is your fourth wife? Managed to find one you can quicken yet? It’s a shame buggery doesn’t work that way.’
‘I will keep this brief,’ Besko stated, his face colouring.
‘Good. The less time you spend here the better.’
Besko scowled, then drew himself up. ‘Your sister, Elena Anborn, has betrayed the emperor. She has been declared a traitor and a price placed upon her head. Her assets are subject to seizure. Consequently her majority share in Anborn Manor has become the property of the Crown. You are hereby evicted, with effect from month-end. If you have any contact with her, you are to report it to the council immediately. That is all.’ He looked around the gloomy room. ‘It will probably benefit your health to get out of this rat-infested pit anyway.’
Alaron stared at the man in horror, but his mother just laughed harshly. ‘So, Elena finally became a liability to that shifty creep Gurvon Gyle, did she? I hope she sold him down the river for all he had.’
Besko ignored her. ‘Madam, you have until 30 Noveleve to find some other filthy hovel in which to end your years.’ He half-turned away, then paused, looking at her slyly. ‘I understand you have a good library here.’ He jingled a purse before her bli
nd face. ‘I have gold.’
‘Go and stick it up your boyfriend’s arse.’
Besko snorted, spat into her lap and turned.
He ran straight into Alaron’s fist.
Alaron had been seething from the moment Besko addressed his mother, and his temper stoked higher at every word. Besko’s message shocked him: that Elena could be a traitor was inconceivable, however little he knew her. That the council could strip away his family’s property was surely wrong. And the man’s manner was insufferable. He was swinging before he’d even thought the thing through, and his fist hammered into the man’s nose with a satisfying crunch, sending the Grand-Magister reeling.
Before he could follow up, big arms enveloped him from behind and Sergeant Harft hissed in his ear, ‘Stop it, you fool!’
Alaron struggled furiously until Magister Besko’s bleeding furious face pushed into his and all of the air in his throat stopped moving. For an instant he didn’t recognise what the Magister was doing, then he panicked, flailing desperately, unable to make a sound. He tried to counter the Air-gnosis, but without a periapt his efforts were pitiful. His vision swam as Besko laughed and pulled back his fist.
‘Sir, stop – he’s just a boy—’ Sergeant Harft swung Alaron bodily away from the blow. ‘Your career, sir!’
That made Besko pause. He wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve and glowered at the sergeant. ‘What does it matter if I throttle the little turd?’ He twisted his hand and the force tightened around Alaron’s throat.
His mother snarled distantly as Alaron felt himself begin to pass out, and then all of a sudden the pressure was gone and he fell against the sergeant, gulping down air despite the pain.
Besko spat again. ‘Ah, I suppose you’re right, Sergeant. He’s not worth it.’ Besko’s face loomed in front of Alaron. ‘Hear that, boy? You’re not worth it, and you never will be.’ He turned back and repeated, ‘Out by the thirtieth, you old hag,’ then stormed out of the room.