In spite of his bravado, Cadman was worried. More worried than he’d been in centuries. It wasn’t in his nature to take such bold action; and yet wasn’t that the way life worked, throwing up opportunities for advancement, each acceptance bearing its own risks?
“What are the Lost?” Zara Gen had taken on the complexion of wax, and his knuckles looked almost arthritic from gripping the arms of his chair so tightly.
“Who would be more apposite, don’t you think, Callixus? Governor, Governor, things have got ahead of themselves, as I knew they would. Action begets more action, I always say, and all action leads inexorably to climax, dispersal, and disintegration. I’m afraid it doesn’t bode well for dear old Sarum, but what’s a man to do when the entire cosmos is just waiting to take a swipe at him? Back in my day we had something known as the Lost and Found—I expect you have something similar here at Arnbrook House, what with this being a thoroughly bureaucratic institution. What Aeterna has lost, I have found and intend to put to good use. Let’s see if this particular climax can’t be twisted to a positive end.” More positive for some than others, if fate doesn’t defecate in my celebratory champagne.
“Don’t worry, Governor, once I have the rest of the statue I won’t be sticking around here. You might even get out of this alive—if you stay put and do as you’re told. Now do be a dear and zip it, as they used to say.”
Cadman touched the amber pieces together, watched them spark and glow. He closed his eyes and reached out into the streets of Sarum, hunting, probing.
“Now look here, Cadman, we’re both reasonable men,” Zara Gen said, breaking Cadman’s concentration.
“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, Governor. Shut up!”
Zara Gen shrank back into his chair as Cadman once more closed his eyes and sought out the dead of Sarum. He didn’t have far to look, the wisps of his questing soul drawn to the fresh corpses of a death-cart a couple of blocks away. Siphoning off the power of Eingana to enhance his own necromantic art, he breathed black life into the cadavers and felt the first stirrings of undeath.
Casting his net wider, Cadman scoured the morgues and hospitals, animating all the dead flesh he could find before passing over the cemeteries and revisiting the tumuli outside the city. He felt their groaning protests, these reluctant slaves drawn back from the grave. There were hundreds of them, all connected to his will by the merest sliver of awareness; not enough to think for themselves, but enough for mechanical movements and a burning hunger that would never be sated, no matter how many victims they feasted on.
“Good,” Cadman said, pocketing the pieces of amber. “That went well. Now then—”
A distant caw sounded from deep in his mind. Cadman slapped the side of his head and pounded his ear like a swimmer trying to void water.
The caw was answered by another, louder and more urgent, and then another. Icy dread crept up his spine, adding to the cold that never left him.
Bugger. Now what have I done?
“Callixus.” Cadman’s voice was shaking. He coughed to clear his throat and turned to the wraith who was hovering just a little too close for comfort. “Meet the Lost outside and take them to the templum. Justin will be expecting you.” Not that I don’t trust the boy knights to get the job done, but you can never be too careful. “Get rid of the priests and then search every nook and cranny. If there is a piece of the statue there, I want it, do you understand?”
A ripple passed through Callixus’s ghostly body. “What of Shader? He was able to harm me before.”
“So the odds are even. The legends say you were the greatest of the Elect; surely, even in death you can best a neurotic upstart who doesn’t seem to know whether he’s coming or going. Oh, and Callixus, send one of your men to me. Someone’s going to need to keep an eye on our friend here.”
Callixus’s eyes narrowed to red slits and then he dispersed in a puff of black smoke.
“There’s still time to put an end to all this.” Zara Gen was half out of his chair.
The sound of breaking glass came from somewhere downstairs.
“No there’s not. The game’s afoot, Governor. If I were you I’d sit very, very still. Do nothing, say nothing, and who knows, you might turn out to be the luckiest man alive.”
Cadman headed for the door but it opened just before he reached it. A massive knight stood in the doorway, skeletal jaw hanging slack, one shriveled eyeball dangling from a thread across a bony cheek. The links on its rusty chainmail were broken here and there, leaving unsightly tears like a moth-eaten rag. It wore the surcoat of the Elect, blackened with mildew, and carried a dented kite shield and jagged longsword.
That was quick.
“I am Abelard,” the dead knight rasped, its jaw falling to one side and looking like it was about to drop off. “Marshall of the Elect and second only to Callixus.”
“A pleasure,” Cadman said, holding out his hand and then withdrawing it, thinking Abelard’s might come off if he shook it. “You sound eminently qualified for the job. This—” He turned to Zara Gen. “—is our beloved governor. Under no circumstances is he to leave this room. If he tries anything, kill him.”
From the looks of things, Zara Gen wasn’t likely to try anything very much at all—although he was starting to look like he needed to relieve himself.
“On second thought—” Cadman turned back to Abelard. “—he may need the W.C. You’d better wait outside or he’ll never stop, and I’d hate for him to run out of toilet paper. Right, I must leave you two to get acquainted.” I have business to discuss with a rather shady customer who’s got more tentacles than an octopus.
It was another step down the slippery slope, but what else could he do? The die was cast, the players assembled. Now it was up to him to ensure that the odds were stacked definitively in his favor.
PAST GLORIES, PRESENT WOES
Hagalle, Emperor of Sahul, stood upon the balcony of the Imperial Palace in Jorakum and waved to the marching veterans and the dutifully cheering crowd. It seemed a particularly long parade. Never-ending. Interminable. It was all very well honoring past heroes, but with enemies at every door it would have been more comforting to be surrounded by the heroes of the present. If you could find any, that is. He clenched a fist behind his back and hoped that his fixed smile hadn’t turned into a grimace. With his armies scouring the interior for any sign of an Eastern incursion, protecting the coasts from mawgs or the inevitable Templum invasion, and now containing the plague in Sarum, he was feeling more than a little stretched. More than a little vulnerable. The last thing he needed was a Veteran’s Day procession. If the tedium didn’t kill him, the chances are some skulking assassin in the crowd would. It was a sign of the times. Every second man would more likely stab you than shake your hand. Troubling times. Worrying. Violent times.
“What is it, Emperor?” Aristodeus brushed against him and peered at the crowd, looking more at home with the occasion than a member of the royal family—if there’d been one.
With his father murdered by the Sicarii, who were supposed to serve him, his mother in a lunatic asylum in Daemonia, and his idiot younger brother Paryll killed falling from his horse, Hagalle was the last of the line, as Aristodeus always reminded him each time he put in one of these impromptu appearances. All very well for him to say, Hagalle gave the philosopher a sideways glance and leaned on the balustrade to create some distance between them, but no sooner was he alone with a beautiful woman than his manhood wilted like a tulip in the desert. His blasted worries couldn’t leave him alone for one minute so that he could get the job done without fretting about being stuck with a hairpin, or receiving the kiss of death from poisoned lips.
“Thought I saw something down there: a glint of metal.” Bastards never gave up. You could see them everywhere, if you looked hard enough. Always lurking, always waiting in the shadows.
Aristodeus scanned the crowd like a hawk, pursed his lips and shrugged. “Probably just a coin, or sunlight glinting from jewelry
.”
Hagalle drew back, his jaw aching from smiling so much. He’d expected Aristodeus to say that. What he couldn’t decide, though, was whether the philosopher was keeping something from him or mocking him. Hagalle was fully aware that most of his inner-circle thought him paranoid. No one had the guts to tell him to his face, but he saw the looks, heard the whispers. Maybe one day, when the Ipsissimus showed up with an invasion fleet, they’d eat humble pie, and if they didn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to have a mass execution to restore respect.
Troop after troop of Sahul’s retired servicemen marched past the palace to the steady boom, boom, boom of the bass drums, the rat-tat-tat of the snares, the wail of the bagpipes; each regiment preceded by a standard bearing its motto and years of service.
“Look,” Aristodeus said with the enthusiasm of a small boy at a shark cull. “The Cassowaries. Wasn’t that Emperor Gorkan’s regiment?”
Hagalle squinted at the blue-coats goose-stepping past, chins held high and flanked by the drooping ends of regimental mustaches. Each old soldier had an enormous broadsword strapped to his waist, and at the front a big bull of a man hoisted the standard aloft: a flightless blue bird on a white background.
“He pretty much grew up with them.” Hagalle acknowledged the troop with a nod. “Tough old birds.” He gave a little laugh at the irony. It’s how the regiment had jokingly described itself when Hagalle followed in his father’s footsteps during his youth. Good times, he sighed. Happy times. All before he’d been left to run this tinpot empire from the steaming, stinking dungheap of a city that was Jorakum.
“Many of the men down there fought for my father in the civil war.” Hagalle turned an eye on the philosopher to make sure he was listening.
Aristodeus dabbed at his slick forehead with a handkerchief, eyes widening with what looked like feigned interest. Hagalle knew even Aristodeus wouldn’t dare to change the subject, and would have to endure the coming monologue with tortured patience. That was the first cheery thought he’d had all day.
“It’s to men such as these,” he took in the endless blue line with a majestic sweep of his arm, “that we owe the survival of the Zaneish Dynasty. I’m sure you’re aware, old friend, that we go back more than three hundred years.”
Hagalle was starting to enjoy himself. Of course Aristodeus was aware—he’d been the one to teach him history, along with philosophy, the rudiments of the science of the Ancients, and the art of war. His father might have misjudged the Sicarii, but he’d made a fine choice of tutor. Pity the bald bastard had grown to be such an irritation later in life.
“Quite, quite.” Aristodeus’s voice had a reedy quality to it, as if he were bored out of his mind and trying to sound interested. “Ishgar, wasn’t it? Built up the Sahulian League. Forced the Eastern Lords to sign the Charter just outside of Sarum. Did I ever teach you about the strategy he employed?”
Hagalle frowned and shook his head before turning back to the procession and watching his beloved Cassowaries march into the distance. Their place in the interminable line was taken up by the beige-cloaked Wanderoos.
“Bloody turncoats,” Hagalle muttered under his breath, then smiled and waved as the entire unit turned their heads to recognize him. Their cowardice had forced Gorkan to cede New Ithaka to the Millians and allowed them to enthrone Troy Jance as their puppet.
“Then let me tell you.” Aristodeus made a steeple of his fingers and pressed it to his lips in his characteristic teaching mannerism. It occurred to Hagalle that the philosopher was actually rather enjoying their chat, and that soured what brief moments of pleasure he’d had thinking he was the one inflicting the misery.
“Ishgar was a migrant to Sahul. Some say he was shipwrecked in the South West during a storm. Of course, there are other legends, more fanciful, which have him being spewed from the mouth of a sea serpent that had slipped through a doorway between Earth and the dark side of the Dreaming. I rather suspect it was a lot more mundane than that…”
Hagalle covered his mouth with his hand—it wouldn’t do to be caught yawning at such a solemn occasion. Blessedly, Duke Farian tapped his shoulder and beckoned him inside to where servants were rushing about preparing the Veteran’s Day banquet.
“Your Imperial Highness,” Farian was flushed with excitement. “Our troops cordoning Sarum have been attacked.”
“Mawgs?”
“No, my Emperor. They were surprised and slaughtered by cavalry. Knights wearing the white cloak and red Monas of the Templum.”
Hagalle slammed a fist onto the table in front of him, causing plates and cutlery to clatter noisily. “I knew it! It wouldn’t surprise me if the bloody Nousians were in league with the mawgs.”
Farian frowned. “Should I send for General Starn, Emperor?”
“Of course. Fat lot of good it will do, though.” Hagalle sniggered at his own little joke. Starn wasn’t the most athletic of soldiers and looked more like an over-indulgent baker than a general. About as useful as one, too. “This demands a response, Farian. I want the House Carls ready to march by morning. Where did these knights head after attacking my men?”
“Into the city, my Emperor.”
“Then they will perish with the rest of the population.”
Unless, Hagalle couldn’t help thinking, the blasted Nousians were behind the plague as well, in which case they would no doubt enjoy immunity. The thought panicked him and he had to draw a deep breath to keep his composure.
“Uhm, do you still wish me to summon General Starn, Emperor?” Farian was bobbing from one foot to the other.
Buffoon.
“How many times do I need to tell you, Farian? We can’t afford to pussyfoot any longer. The mawg situation is bad enough on its own. And now we have a Templum incursion into Sahul. The bloody Millians must be really pleased!”
Farian hurried off whilst Hagalle strode back out to the balcony and manufactured the required equanimity as he waved at the crowds and the ceaselessly passing veterans. His re-emergence was greeted with shouts of “Hagalle the Great!” and “Long live the emperor!”
Idiots!
Aristodeus leaned towards him and whispered in his ear. “Everything all right?”
Hagalle smiled benevolently and continued to wave. How much did the bald bastard already know? “Problems down south. Time to pay them a little visit, I think.”
Aristodeus rubbed his chin and gave a nod that might have been pensive, but could equally have been one of satisfaction. “Dark times, Emperor. Dark times indeed,” he said with infuriating vagueness. “Thank the fates we have you to lead us.”
Hagalle snapped his eyes shut and fought for the control to not punch the sarcastic little prat square on the nose. When he opened them again, Aristodeus had gone.
Typical! Bloody typical!
One way or another Hagalle knew his family’s dynasty was coming to an end. If it wasn’t due to the failure of his loins, it was only a matter of time before the Eastern Lords grew bold enough to strike the killing blow. And if by some miracle Hagalle survived that, would even the gold of Ashanta be enough to withstand the joint incursions of the mawgs and the Nousians? If Ashantan assassins didn’t get to him before he found a way to acquire it. His head shook ever so slightly as he continued to wave. There was no stability any more. No matter what he decided, Sahul was entering into a new phase of her turbulent existence.
DREAMER’S APPRENTICE
Sammy opened his eyes, yawned and stretched, reached out for Poodgie, his frayed old teddy bear. Must have fallen off the bed, along with the covers. The bed sure felt hard. Why hadn’t Mom called him, yet? Or Rhiannon? Couldn’t even hear them clattering around in the kitchen.
Something scrabbled over his legs. He sat bolt upright, sending a striped bobtail lizard scurrying for cover.
The embers of last night’s fire still smoldered in the circle of rocks he’d helped set, wisps of smoke wafting into the curved shelter Huntsman had painstakingly erected from bark and twine. There was jus
t enough space for Sammy to curl up inside, the bowed branches overhead keeping in some of the warmth from the fire.
The sky was awash with reds and purples as the sun crept above the horizon, casting a soft and comforting glow over the stark landscape. They had walked the barren scrubland for days with no change in the scenery, no landmarks, just endless miles of red dirt sparsely populated by tufts of wild and spiky grass. Occasionally, the monotony had been broken by the sight of an eagle soaring in the thermals above, or kangaroos on their way to shade and water, although quite where that was Sammy had no idea.
Huntsman was back from foraging for food. He’d found tubers, roots, and foul looking maggoty things. Sammy had hardly eaten during their journey and was starving.
“Something to eat, little fellah?” The old Dreamer took hold of Sammy’s hand and pressed a leaf into his palm. He then dropped some still wriggling maggots on top and indicated with his fingers that Sammy should roll it up and take a bite.
Sammy simply stared at it, the knot of hunger in his stomach shifting to become a lump in his throat. “Can’t eat.” He looked at Huntsman for permission to put the leaf down.
The Dreamer’s eyes were dark and unblinking. “You need their strength.” He poked a maggot. “Much walking still to do.”
Sammy folded the leaf over the creatures and shut his eyes as he bit into it. Something popped between his teeth and a sweet warmth trickled into his mouth. Bile started to rise as he thought about what he was chewing on, but it was quickly replaced by a pleasing tang mingling with the sweetness. For an instant he relaxed, feeling like he was at home having breakfast, and then his mind was filled with the screams of his parents. His eyes were streaming with tears and snot poured from his nose. He tried to sniff it up, but it just kept coming. Huntsman was still watching him, nodding faintly, lips moving in imitation of Sammy’s chewing. It seemed to Sammy that the Dreamer was willing him to eat.
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