Cary J. Lenehan is a former trades assistant, soldier, public servant, cab driver, truck driver, game designer, fishmonger, trainee horticulturalist and university tutor (among other things). His hobbies include collecting and reading books (the non-fiction are Dewey decimalised), Tasmanian native plants (particularly the edible ones), the SCA and gaming. He has taught people how to use everything from shortswords to rocket launchers. He met his wife at an SF Convention while cosplaying and they have not looked back.
He was born in Sydney before marrying and moving to the Snowy Mountains where they started their family. They moved to Tasmania for the warmer winters and are not likely to ever leave it.
Looking out of the window beside his computer is a sweeping view of Mount Wellington and its range.
Warriors of Vhast Book 1
Intimations of Evil
by
Cary J. Lenehan
This is a work of fiction. The events and characters portrayed herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places, events or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author do not necessarily represent the opinions of the publisher.
Intimations of Evil
Book 1, Warriors of Vhast
Cary J. Lenehan
Copyright Cary J. Lenehan/IFWG Publishing 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1-925148-90-9
Version 1.0
Published by IFWG Publishing Australia at Smashwords
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
IFWG Publishing
ifwgpublishing.com
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank the many people who have read this book as it has evolved from notes written while sitting in a cab waiting for fares to what it is now. While most have been polite and said they liked it, sometimes the readers have not enjoyed it and have been kind enough to say why, which has often told me things about my writing. Some have also offering some amazing insights that have led me to change sections and the way I write. In particular I wish to thank Pip Woodfield who has read so many iterations of the text that she may know it all better than I do.
None of the characters are based on real people, but feel free to ask how they came to be.
This is book is dedicated to my mother, Eden and my beloved wife Marjorie, both of whom have shown incredible patience with me over the years as I have followed my dreams. I hope you both enjoy it and are proud of how it has turned out.
Prologue
From dark deep lands above
Far flung beyond dark sky
Winged lords of light wove magic vast
Built up lands and mountains high
Eldest gods in sky-borne homes
Weave in place our fates so fell
Fetched forth from earth and water
Races many come forward to dwell
Bring the Dragons; bring the Dwarves
Among the peaks, find who is bold
Then do Seven beget the slaughter,
Old and dire, find who will hold
Tales of the Beginning
Paarlakmugaani,
Bard of the Cenubarkincilari Hobgoblins
All events have a beginning.
There is always some incident which people can look back at and wisely say to each other, “If this single thing did not happen then our history and our world would look different.”
Such a beginning may not be sufficient—other things may have to happen as well—but it is necessary and all else that happens flows from this single point in time.
What follows here is just such a beginning.
Part 1
Chapter I
For Sergeant Basil Akritas the decision to leave Ardlark was easy. The Strategos Panterius had called him in to his musty office and asked for his badge. Basil was surprised. The amulet-badge was one he held as a member of the secret police, the Antikataskopeía. It was the one that enabled him to be easily found and that marked him as one of many in the organisation.
Basil asked no questions. He almost never wore a uniform and spent far more time seeking criminals and potential traitors than wielding a bow like his Kichic-kharl great-grandfather or waving a sword like others of his family, but he was still a soldier.
“Follow,” the Strategos Panterius said, and without further word his superior left the room. With Basil trailing behind, they entered the vast building that was both a military base and palace to the Empire.
They turned and made their way through the maze of cold corridors. As they walked they passed from the strictly functional granite of the castle inwards to the more civilian corridors of marble that made up the palace itself. They went through corridors and up stairs and around corners, places that Basil had never been to before. Without his head turning or him otherwise betraying interest his eyes flicked around and noted everything he passed.
Islamic subjects had obviously built one corridor; soft boots made no noise as they walked on the tiled floors. The walls were covered in friezes of bright geometric design and an ornate plaster ceiling. His eyes filled with wonder. Through marvellous arches, another corridor opened to a secluded garden with a fountain. A cold breeze blew bringing with it the aroma of flowers. A second passage showed its Christian building style with painted plaster walls and mosaic murals depicting the business of the Court. One mosaic showed the God-King Hrothnog seated on a throne in the vast ceremonial audience chamber buried deeper in the palace receiving homage from the various races of the Empire.
Yet another corridor was clearly of Kharl workmanship; the polished black basalt floors almost slippery, but making a surface that would allow an impressive sound to echo around when walked on with hobnailed boots. This corridor also had white plaster panels on the walls and on each painted scenes of battle. Above them were old banners of tagmata regiments, and possibly even countries long vanished, their memory perhaps only preserved here by these fragments.
They passed doors of different timbers and sizes, and more corridors, small and large. These themes repeated themselves in a hodge-podge of style as they moved further inward and climbed up several more stories. Eventually they came to a pair of large well-polished wooden doors tall enough for even one of the giant Insak-div to pass through without stooping. The smell of rich cedar oil lay around the area and tickled Basil’s nose. The doors had large shiny brass handles and the Strategos grasped one of these, which opened silently as he ushered a very nervous Basil inside.
Where were they going?
The room looked over thirty paces wide in each direction; its floor covered in a thick carpet, with rugs and tapestries on the white smooth-plastered walls. Silence seemed to radiate from it and there was an underlying scent of sandalwood. Three glazed windows down one wall lit the room with natural light. At the rear of the room was a single door as wide and equally tall as the one they had walked through. It appeared to be made of one of the jungle timbers near his home town. Basil wasn’t a carpenter so he wasn’t sure which, but he had seen its red colour and grain before in the doors and furniture of the south.
A desk and some leather covered chairs were in the centre of the room. A Human male sat behind the desk dressed very conservatively in the Islamic fashion. A handsome young man and a very attractive young woman also sat on chairs near the desk, each in baggy purple silk trousers and golden jerkins, gathered with golden sashes at their waists, which had embroidered on them, over th
eir hearts, the Imperial symbols.
Strategos Panterius gestured to Basil to sit then spoke to the man behind the desk. The man glanced at Basil, nodded, and gestured at the seated servants. The girl rose, listened for a moment then moved silently across the room. She opened the single door and went through, closing it behind her without a sound.
After a couple of minutes the girl emerged.
“Come,” she said in a mellow contralto and gestured to the Strategos who in turn, impatiently waved for Basil to follow. They went through the single door and entered an odd-shaped room that had three walls made almost entirely of huge sheets of glass. The view from this end of the palace was over the public buildings and administration, the Circus, the docks and over indeed most of Ardlark.
In the centre of the room were a desk and chair and coming around them was God-King Hrothnog himself. Being a Christian, Basil didn’t accept the God part of the title…although close up it was a very different proposition. Hrothnog was clad in a purple silk tunic. It was a far finer and softer-looking silk than his messengers outside wore, with designs worked in gold, possibly even real gold, on the breast. He had breeches of a lighter purple tucked into deep purple leather boots and wore a ring on each of his fingers. His fingers were like a rainbow with the variety of colours. Each would be more than a decoration, holding enchantments or at least serving as the focus for a casting.
It was the first time Basil had actually met his ruler close up and he wasn’t sure what terrified him most. It could have been the piercing golden eyes that seemed to glow, even in the well-lit room. It could have been the resonant bass voice that turned his knees to jelly when he spoke. Possibly it was the hands and face; desiccated as a body found after years in the desert; belonging to a dead man rather than a living one.
He was not sure if what he saw was real, or if it was an illusion. Even more, he didn’t want to know. He didn’t even want to think about it—after all Hrothnog probably knew what he was thinking and to offend his ruler was unthinkable.
That movement of the lips—was it the rictus of a corpse or was it the ghost of a smile? Damn, he was thinking again. Basil’s face was immobile and showed nothing of what went on behind it, as befits a trained intelligence officer, but his mind was running everywhere and letting his God-King know everything. That had to be a smile on the face as he turned from the Strategos to let his gaze fall on Basil as he tried to still his mind.
“I have a task for you,” Hrothnog intoned. “It may take you all of your life and still not be finished when that is ended. If you accept you will leave Darkreach and might never return. It is possible that you may never see your family again. You might not ever be paid and you will only have the instructions that I give you to guide you. For these reasons you can decline the task now and there will be no mention of it again and you will have a normal career in your field.
“If you choose to go you must tell your family you are going away on my orders. If you do accept, the circumstances of your family will improve dramatically for all of time. That will be your payment. Do you accept?”
Basil was a soldier, he had agreed to give his life for the Empire, and now the Emperor asked him personally to live it for a task. Not much of a choice really. He swallowed. His voice did not seem to want to work. “Yes sir,” he eventually managed to croak out.
Hrothnog nodded. Basil was sure he heard Strategos Panterius sigh. It was hard to believe, but he must have been personally recommended by the Strategos. Basil suspected it was important to the Strategos that he had agreed to accept the task.
Hrothnog, to Basil’s discomfort looked him up and down again before starting to speak again.
“My great-great-granddaughter Theodora left the palace several days ago disguised as an Insackharl Kataphractoi mage. She is leaving Darkreach behind and thinks that her departure is secret. Despite her taking some time to leave, I have decided that I do not believe she is prepared for the outside world at all. You will report to the Strategos at dawn tomorrow with two saddlebags of personal effects. The rest will be supplied to you. You will have two tasks: to keep Theodora alive—even if it costs you your own life—and to act as her servant wherever she goes.” He paused and looked at Basil as if expecting to see him refuse at this stage.
Basil was full of a mix of curiosity and a still quaking stomach, but he said nothing.
“You will be transported to Dochra where you will pose as a servant whose master has died. She cannot care for herself, but she believes that she needs to leave and be independent. For my own reasons I think that she may actually be right in this and, what is more, I think that she needs to believe that she is on her own with no support from me.”
Basil was not sure if he wanted to hear his Emperor explaining his thoughts to him in what he was sure was meant as a confidential tone, but he kept his attention focused.
“Until you have left Darkreach well behind, you cannot tell her who you are, or that you are under orders in case she rejects you and leaves. You must always be a servant who just happened to find her when she needed you. After you have left whether you tell her or not is up to you. Is this clear?”
Basil nodded—he didn’t quite understand them, but at least he had orders.
“Then go.”
At this dismissal Basil and the Strategos bowed, withdrew a couple of paces, turned and left the room. The servant girl messenger was still behind them and she opened the door for the two.
Basil found that they were retracing their route from Hrothnog’s room with the Strategos motioning Basil to silence. On reaching his office the Strategos told his staff that they were not to be disturbed and closed the door. He briefly checked something, Basil could not see what, but it was in his desk drawer, and then motioned Basil into a soft chair at the side, one of a pair that had always been there but he had never seen used. The smell of leather rose around him as he sat.
The Strategos poured them both a goblet of red wine from a bottle in a cupboard before sitting in the other chair. Basil took a sip, savouring the aroma and the flavour and noting that it was a far better quality than he was used to.
“This is a delicate matter,” Strategos Panterius said. “The Emperor is quite concerned. I wish that we could do more, but nearly the only resource we can give you is money. Here are a set of saddlebags.” He rose and strode over to where a set of good quality, but old and well-used saddlebags sat in a corner and lifted them up on the desk. “You will see that they look normal but, if you look here,” and he showed where, “you will see hidden pockets. There is a supply of imperials, sesterces, denarii and numismata in here, not just in our coins, but also in currency from other realms. Spend it wisely. We cannot give you any magic items that you would not have as a servant. Theodora is a powerful mage and she will sense any magic you are carrying. This is about as far as we can go.” He handed Basil a small oak wand the size of a little finger that was in a pouch that would slide easily onto a belt. “Up to eight times a day, on being grasped and given the command ‘light’ it will produce a flame that will last long enough for you to light a fire. At least you will not need a flint and steel.” He handed it over.
Basil lit it and commanded it to go out, before putting it in one of his larger pouches. Useful, he thought, and not just for cooking.
“Without magic or any other support you will have to rely on your cunning and experience. You are one of our fittest agents available; you can run fast, track and hide in the city or the field, and are used to dealing with people and finding things out. In addition, and this suits you most for this mission, you have worked extensively as a servant. You can cook and are experienced in treating wounds. As well you can speak some outland tongues and look much younger than your twenty-five years. People expect you to be a youth with a youth’s lack of experience. They underestimate you. All of this is why I selected you for this task.” He paused and sighed again.
Basil was still savouring sitting in the Strategos’ office and enjoyin
g the rich wine.
“If you do manage to discover anything of importance to Darkreach, write it down and seal it with this.” He pulled out a small cloth bag. In it was a small green cylindrical seal with a complex and meaningless design on it. Basil was used to seeing these magical seals with high-ranking officers.
“Hold it in your hand until it goes cold.”
Basil did as he was told. It didn’t take long.
“Once it is sealed hand it to any of our merchants headed back here. You can promise them a good reward when they hand it to me personally. Tomorrow we will provide you with some good quality weapons, no armour of course. Do you have any questions?” Basil had many questions, but none that he felt that he could actually ask. Receiving no queries, the Strategos followed on. “Good. Now take your saddlebags home and pack. Say farewell to your family. Remember you are just going away on orders. You may tell them that it will be for a long time. Return here to meet with me at dawn.”
“I hear and obey,” said Basil, bringing his right hand up in a salute with his fist; thumb on top, over his heart. Putting his new sigil carefully away in a pouch, he picked up the saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder and headed for the door. As he was leaving he paused. There had been a question floating in the back of his mind. Whatever it was had escaped him and in his bewilderment at what he was doing, he shook his head and returned home to pack.
Intimations of Evil (Warriors of Vhast Book 1) Page 1