“Make yourself at home.”
“Ah, you know me, Gaston.”
He certainly did. He’d known her since childhood. They’d been inseparable until he’d tried to kiss her. She’d forgiven him, but things had never been the same since. She seemed all right now, though. Maybe she could tell he’d changed. Changed herself too, he reckoned. Must have if the Templum of the Knot had accepted her.
“What you reading?”
“Oh, some theological crap Shader lent me.”
Her face dropped at that. It was no secret there’d been something between her and Shader. She’d denied it to him, but Gaston could tell. He’d seen the way Shader behaved around her—almost boyish. Always giggling, making jokes.
“What did he say before he left?”
Gaston shrugged. “Said he had doubts. About the Order mostly. Said he’d always had trouble marrying the sword and the Monas and didn’t feel good about leading the rest of us down that path.”
“So why’d he start it?”
“Mawgs I guess. Someone needed to do something to make sure they didn’t come back.”
Rhiannon winced, probably remembering. She’d been an inch away from being torn apart, devoured and disgorged. If it hadn’t been for Shader…
“So it’s over then? The White Order.”
Shader had told him to disband it, but the lads had objected. Couldn’t say he blamed them. All that training, all that discipline, and for what? Just so they could go back to being farmers scraping a living from the harsh soil of Sahul?
“No, it’s not over. Don’t reckon I share his conflicts. Sometimes you can dig too deeply into this stuff.” He slung the book on the floor. “Better to keep it simple. Clear rules, hard discipline.”
“Your dad, Gaston…”
“Was a bloody heretic. Would’ve told the Ipsissimus and all the Exempti they were wrong if he had half the—”
“No, not that. I mean about last night.”
“What about it?”
She shifted on the couch, looked him in the eye, serious all of a sudden. “You ready to talk now?”
Gaston sucked on his top lip, wished he had a drink in his hand. “Nothing to say. The ol’ man practically disowned me, and Mom went along with it, like she always does. He made his choices and I made mine. Reckon that’s an end to the matter.”
“Your choice, mate, but if you ever want to—Shog me!” Rhiannon glanced at the bottles still in her hands. “I’m bloody sober.”
“Well that can’t be good. You’ll have way too much time for that when you get to Sarum.”
He grabbed the bottles from her and wandered into the kitchen to open them. Rhiannon followed him, still a little unsteady despite what she said.
“What happened between us, Gaston, is it OK now?”
“Forgotten,” he said. “I was wrong and you set me straight.”
“Same thing happened with Shader.”
Gaston felt his cheek twitching and set to work on the cork. “That why he left?”
Rhiannon sighed. “Maybe.”
Couldn’t take the rejection? Or the shame of people knowing he wasn’t quite so holy after all? Made a certain kind of sense.
“Shog Shader.” Gaston poured some wine and offered it to Rhiannon.
“Shog him.” She grinned, raising the glass. There was no answering sparkle in her eyes, though.
She threw back her head and downed the wine. Gaston poured himself one, spilling some in his hurry to catch up with Rhiannon, red veins trickling across the table and dripping to the floor. He knocked his back and poured them both another, opened the second bottle and tucked it under his arm as they returned to the living room.
“Bit flaming spartan, isn’t it?” Rhiannon was frowning at the bare walls, giant shadows sprawling across them, animated by the flickering candles.
“Guess I don’t need much.” Gaston gulped down some wine. “Keeps me focused on the inside.”
Rhiannon nodded vacantly, took a sip and faced him. Gaston couldn’t be sure in the gloom, but he thought she’d been crying.
“Gaston, are we still mates?”
He took a step towards her, but she held up a hand, shut her eyes.
“Can I still talk to you? Tell you everything?”
Gaston sat on the edge of the couch, leaving space for her to do the same. She hesitated and then dropped down beside him, head pressed into the cushions. She reached out, missed his hand and then found it, gave it a pat. A giggle escaped her and she hiccupped.
“Drink something.” Gaston topped her up.
“Gaston.” She turned her bleary eyes on him, doing her best to look sincere, lips slightly parted, pupils dilated. “Huntsman came to see me.”
The Dreamers’ witch doctor? No one had seen him for years. “What the heck did he want?”
Gaston finished the wine in his glass and gave himself a refill. Rhiannon seemed to be slowing down, but he was just getting started. He felt an urge to brush her face with his fingers; managed to resist. It made him think of the last time, when she’d given him a black eye. He’d stayed home until it had gone, scared someone would see.
“He asked me to turn down Shader.”
Dump him? Did that mean…?
Rhiannon was studying his face, her eyes black in the dim light. “Sha… Deacon proposed to me.” She spluttered out laughter and snot, wiped her face, and sobbed, all in an instant.
“But…”
“I know. He’s consecrated. Vows in Aeterna and more vows at Pardes. We went through all that. In spite of it all, he wanted me.”
More than Nous? More than the Elect? What did that say about the White Order? Where did that leave him and Barek, Justin, Elgin and the others? Rhiannon seemed to know what he was thinking.
“He loved you, Gaston. Loved you all. He would have stayed too, if I’d said yes. Oh, rules would have to be changed, but what the shog. Rules are meant to be broken.”
“What’s that got to do with Huntsman?”
“Destiny.” Rhiannon rolled her eyes. “Matters beyond my puny mind and selfish desires.”
“He said that?”
“Not exactly, but that’s what he meant. Even reminded me about going into the novitiate, though how the heck he knew about that I’ll never know.”
“You told him where to go, right?”
Rhiannon lowered her head and stared into her glass. “He told me things. Things about powers that were older than the Reckoning.” She sniffed and took a sip.
Gaston did the same, starting to feel the warmth pricking at his skin, the easing of self-consciousness.
“Remember those stories Elias used to tell?” Rhiannon said. “The Archon, the Demiurgos, and Eingana?”
“Falling from the Void? Eingana is raped by her brother, the Demiurgos, has some weird baby…”
“The Cynocephalus.”
“That’s it. Dog-headed ape or some shit. You listened to this?”
“And a whole crock more.” She shuffled closer to him and rested her hand on his knee. “There are powers behind everything, Huntsman said. Even the Templum. Shader is caught up in it. Wouldn’t say how, but he said he had a role to play, and that I’d prevent him fulfilling his destiny.”
“What did Shader say about it?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
So, she just dumped him like she’d dumped Gaston. Bet she didn’t give him a shiner, though.
Gaston emptied his glass and looked at Rhiannon’s face. She didn’t look away like he’d expected. There was wine on her lips, and her tongue rolled across them. The candlelight picked out her teeth, unnaturally white it seemed to him. Virginal. He leaned in to steady her glass before she spilled it, risked a touch of her hand. When she didn’t pull away, he grew bolder, stroking her fingers, her wrist, her forearm. He sucked in a gulp of air, head dizzy with the scent of her. He felt a swelling in his groin, brought his knees up so she’d not notice. His fingers were in her hair, lifting it away from her neck.
He slid his face in closer, felt her breath on his skin. Their cheeks brushed and he shuddered. He pressed his lips to hers seeking an opening with his tongue.
“What the—?”
Her fist cracked into his nose, white-hot needles lancing into his brain. His hands flew to his face, glass shattering, wine splashing.
Rhiannon reached out, eyes wide, mouth open. “Gaston, I’m sorry. I… I—”
He punched her square in her jaw, sent her sprawling. She tried to wriggle backwards, but he caught her ankle. Her other foot kicked him in the chin, jolted his head back, blurred his vision. He threw his weight on top of her and hit her again—this time in the mouth. She gasped and sobbed, spitting out blood. Gaston cursed himself for an idiot. His knuckles had ripped on her teeth. Should have hit her in the eye, see how she liked that. She screamed and clawed at his face.
“Shogging bitch,” he snarled, thumping her again, splitting the skin around her eye before starting to throttle her. She was gonna get it this time, shogging whore. Make up for what she did to him before.
Pressing down on her neck with one hand, he stuck the other between her legs, tugged at cloth, felt something tear, forced a finger inside. She screamed again and struggled furiously. He threw his head back and crashed it into her face. There was a sound like the splitting of a melon and she went limp. Ripping away her skirt, he tugged open his pants, guided himself with his hand, and thrust into her. She moaned something, head lolling to one side, blood running from her nose. Pulling her shirt open, he dug his nails into her breasts, alternately scratching and biting, marking her, drawing blood. He lifted her hips, pounding into her, grunting, cursing, spitting. Shog his dad, shog Shader, shog her. All the rage bubbled up his spine and hit his brain. He shuddered, groaned, flopped on top of her.
“Shogging bitch,” he growled. “Filthy, shogging, shogging, filthy…” He stared open-mouthed at her rag doll body, all ripped and ruined. He started to whimper, delicately rubbing her face, dabbing away the blood. Dabbing, dabbing. “I-I-It wasn’t me. Rhiannon. It w-w-wasn’t me.” Over and over again, stammering like he always used to.
She stirred and started to slide from under him. He raised himself on one arm and let her. She rolled to the floor and waited there a moment, panting on her knees.
“R-R-Rhiannon. It wasn’t—”
“Shog … you … scut.”
He winced, fumbled with his pants, pushing his back into the couch so he could pull them up.
“Listen t-t-to me. The wine. You h-h-hit me first. I was in s-s-shock.” What if she told someone? She wouldn’t even need to. Ain, what had he done to her face? “N-N-Not me, n-not me, not me.”
Rhiannon stood, wrapping the remains of her clothes about her.
“Don’t g-g-go. Please wait. Someone will see.”
She stumbled towards the door.
Gaston leapt up and got in front of her, palms raised. “Wait, Rhiannon. P-P-Please. I can—oooph!”
Her knee caught him in the nuts, doubling him up, the air blasting from his lungs. The door clicked open and slammed.
Gaston fell on his arse, clutching his balls, gasping for breath. He noticed the book Shader had lent him, tossed carelessly on the floor: LaRoche’s Foundations of Holiness lying there like an accusation.
“Shog you!” Gaston kicked the book, crying out as he felt a sharp pain in his groin. Moaning, he rolled onto his side and sobbed like a baby. “Dad…You can’t be… Dad!”
AFTER THE SHOW
The dreams of the Cynocephalus burst through the veil between the worlds, drawn by the statue in Huntsman’s hands. Cities burned before mighty dragons; blood-drinkers prowled the streets; creeping forests smothered towns and villages; mountains spewed forth lava, and leviathans rose from the deep.
The immolated Dreamer watched from the eye of the storm as nightmare became reality and the great civilizations fell. His heart thumped to a new beat, his flesh tempered by the power of a goddess.
Here and there people survived, as they always do. The dream power softened over the millennia, but a magic had now entered the world that some would learn to adapt to, most would come to ignore, and a few would hunger after like flies on a corpse. The residue of the Reckoning drew evil from the shadows; creatures whose half-lives had dragged on interminably since before the time of the Ancients. These were the deceived, the duped of the Abyss, the ones who probed too far and could no longer turn back.
* * *
The music ceased. Barek looked about the pub as if it were an alien world. Others stood, disorientated, but then started to make their way to the bar, talking in hushed voices at first, until within a minute or so the Griffin had returned to its usual hubbub. Besides the puddle of blood on the floor, he could see no sign of the cloaked midget, which was something of a relief.
Barek approached Elias, who was putting his guitar back in its case.
“What happened to Huntsman?” he asked. “Surely he didn’t die.” Otherwise how come folk had seen him?
The bard paused for a moment, looking intently into Barek’s eyes.
“What is this Order of yours about, Barek?”
“Shader founded it to make sure we’re ready if the mawgs come back.”
“And the Nousian stuff? Is that to make the mawgs sick, or to piss off Hagalle?”
Barek looked away. There was no point getting into an argument over this. Everyone knew what Elias’s opinions were about the Templum. Hagalle might have hated the Ipsissimus, feared him even, but Elias Wolf was a much more dangerous opponent: a mocker, a scorner, and what’s worse, a satirist. The Nousian foothold in Sahul might survive the persecutions of the emperor, but Barek doubted it could last long against the jibes of the most famous bard in the region. Nor could his own faith, Barek had to admit. Oh, he was attracted to it all right, but in all honesty, if you put a knife to his throat and asked him what he truly believed, he wasn’t so sure.
“Huntsman was changed by the Reckoning,” Elias continued to fasten shut his guitar case, “but he didn’t croak it. The serpent statue broke into pieces, presumably to lessen the chances of its full power falling into the wrong hands.”
“The spider warned him that others might notice if it was used,” Barek said.
“Exactly. And the Reckoning packed one hell of a wallop. Be hard not to notice, even if you were looking the wrong way with a bag over your head.”
“But why would the statue want to prevent someone else finding it?”
“Huntsman thought it was trying to protect something; perhaps the spider and her dreamy-weamy mates. Don’t think he really had a clue where it came from, what it really was. Oh, he had his tribal legends. Said it was the spirit-body of a goddess petrified by magic, which I must admit makes for a groovy tale. Gray magic, he called it. Poor geezer had no word for science.” Elias bent closer so that he could whisper. “Did I ever tell you about Sektis Gandaw? You see, it was his bloody Technocracy that led to the massacre of the Dreamers that ultimately brought about the Reckoning. But not only that, ol’ Sektis and snaky lady have a history that goes way back, but it’s sketchy, to say the least. Must admit, I’ve been guilty of making bits of it up, you know, dramatic license and that sort of thing. Huntsman only knows what his gods tell him, and to be honest, they sound about as talkative as a dead parrot.”
Barek frowned, not getting it, but he’d heard a lot of this stuff before—probably when Elias used to tell stories to them as children. Barek, Gaston, Justin and Rhiannon. Back in the days before the mawgs had come, with Shader close on their heels. He’d often wondered what had been worse, the flesh-eating beasts or the man who’d driven them away, and then remained, telling them they could be better than they were. They’d believed him, too. Who wouldn’t? Anything had to be better than wringing a living from the arid soil of Sahul, and life in the villages had been as appealing as horse dung. So they’d believed him, sure enough. Right up until the moment he’d left.
“Eh-in-gar-na.” Didn’t exactly r
oll off the tongue. “The goddess was the statue all along?”
Elias’s face lit up. “So, you were listening. The Dreamers say she’s an enormous snake. There’s a huge likeness of her painted on the Cradle Cliffs near Gladelvi. If you ever get chance to head up north you should take a gander. One big eye, like a saucer, stares at you from every angle. Huntsman always said she was fleeing something—that shifty bleeding Demiurgos, most likely. And if not him, then everyone’s favorite megalomaniac, Sektis Gandaw.”
“But how do you know all this? How do you know what Huntsman thought?”
“We’re mates.” Elias grinned. “I may be a bit of a fogey, but I’m connected. And now, if I may, I bid you adieu. Toodle pip.”
Barek frowned as the bard struggled out of the bar, guitar case knocking tables and bashing against the door. He gasped as a hand clapped down on his shoulder.
“Pay up or it’s Mr. Bash for you,” growled Sneaky Nigel, brandishing his infamous club. “Don’t think I didn’t see you. I might have been under the spell like the rest of ‘em, but ol’ Sneaky always keeps one eye on the bar.”
“Right you are.” Barek coughed up the money. “I was going to settle with you on the way out.”
“Course you were.” Sneaky Nigel’s lips opened like a gash, his two remaining teeth jagged and yellow. “See you again, boy.” He slapped Barek on the back and slouched over to the bar.
“Barek,” hollered Justin Salace, raising his jug. “Come and join us.”
Elgin Fallow was slumped over the table, a dozen or so of the other knights sitting around Justin like he was some mythical king. What would Gaston reckon to that?
Barek waved his apology. “Not tonight, mate. I’m bushed.”
He pushed through the door out into the heavy night air. The wind was picking up and it was starting to rain. He could feel Justin’s eyes stabbing him in the back. He’d not looked pleased at Barek’s refusal, but that was just the drink. Let him sleep it off; he’d be right in the morning.
Barek tucked his thumbs in his belt and ambled towards home, humming the bard’s tune and replaying the scenes that had swamped his mind.
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