by David Hair
Malevorn ran towards him. ‘Magister!’
Malevorn barely noticed. His mind was still reeling. Does he mean the Scytale of Corineus?
*
Adamus Crozier and Inquisitor Vordan shut themselves in a dark room with Fyrell’s remains for a full night while the Acolytes waited outside, sleeping if they could. Dominic, blithe and complacent under Malevorn’s protection, was one of the sleepers. He hadn’t heard the words Fyrell had blared into Malevorn’s mind. But Malevorn never slept a wink.
Tesla Anborn has the Scytale of Corineus …
He thought through every scenario he could imagine but still he could find no way that the greatest treasure of the magi could ever be in the hands of Alaron Mercer’s blind wreck of a mother. It was simply not possible.
Yet when Vordan and Adamus emerged from the cell, their faces were hollow-eyed and disbelieving. They called the Fist together, excluding any locals. ‘Hearken,’ Vordan croaked, and then he fell mute, shaking his head. That in itself told Malevorn that he’d not misheard Fyrell.
‘Jeris Muhren. Tesla Anborn. Alaron Mercer. Cymbellea di Regia.’ Adamus reeled off the short list of names in a tired voice. ‘There may be others but they are not identified.’ He looked around the circle of Acolytes. ‘They must be found.’
Malevorn added two more names. Ramon Sensini. Vann Mercer. He wondered if Fyrell had told Adamus that Malevorn now knew what it was they sought. He raised a tentative hand. ‘My lord, is Magister Fyrell …?’ He let his voice trail away.
‘Unfortunately, Magister Fyrell died under questioning,’ Vordan said. ‘Several times.’
Jonas laughed aloud, then shut up fast as Vordan ran his eye over him.
It took another day to determine that Tesla Anborn had been cremated four days prior, not far from where Fyrell had been found. They ransacked the Mercer household, but Vannaton, the father, had allegedly left months before, and no one had seen Alaron since before the night of the incident. Next day, responding to a town crier promising rewards, a beggar claimed to have seen two men ride east from Hurring Gate five days ago. Adamus probed the man’s recollections deeper, pulling an image from his mind that removed any doubt: it had been Jeris Muhren and Alaron Mercer. The process left the beggar with the intellect of a vegetable, saving them any need to pay the reward.
Adamus Crozier sought out Malevorn as they left the city next morning. ‘Brother Malevorn, you know these people. What is your affinity to Clairvoyance?’
Malevorn hung his head. ‘My lord, Clairvoyance is not a Study I have any affinity for.’
Adamus looked disappointed, but accepted this philosophically. ‘Brother Dranid has met Jeris Muhren, so he can lead the scrying. But we cannot afford to let them know we are hunting them, lest they go to earth. First we will hunt them by other means.’ He smiled with some relish. ‘Your venators await us outside the city.’
Malevorn’s spirits lifted. The day he joined the Inquisition, he’d been assigned his own construct: a venator created by Animagi. The reptile had huge featherless wings and was large enough to take a saddled rider and intelligent enough to be tamed. The constructs had been bred by the Pallas magi for the Church and the legions. Riding them was a supreme joy. ‘I cannot wait,’ he admitted, enthusiasm getting the better of his normal poise. The Crozier smiled at that.
That afternoon, as the Inquisitor Fist erupted from the forests north of Norostein on winged beasts, Malevorn roared with exhilaration. The hunt was on, and the Scytale of Corineus was the prize!
2
Identity and Possession
Scarabs
There is a technique I have developed, which involves transference of the intellect from the initial body to another host. It is not a pleasant technique, but it is one that can save the soul when all is lost for the body. I have found after much testing that a large carapaced insect is the ideal vehicle for this transfer, being robust enough to survive the demise of the body and escape, and with a neatly compartmented mind able to hold the memories and self of the mage for a short time, until a new host is found. The Dhassan scarab is ideal, though the Pontic dung-beetle is a useful equivalent in Yuros.
EDIS HULDIN, NECROMANCER,
ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, PONTUS
One of the reasons necromancers are as hard to kill as cockroaches is that they turn into one when they die.
BRYDI TEESDOTTER, ARCANUM OF SAINT TERASSA, HOLLENIA
Brochena, Javon, on the continent of Antiopia
Rajab (Julsep) 928
1st month of the Moontide
I’m only dreaming, Cera Nesti told herself. This is not real. I will wake from this.
But it felt real: an endless maze of corridors, dank stone walls dripping with a pus-like sticky fluid, and everywhere the stench of decay. Massive cobwebs wafted in the chill breeze, constantly shifting as she sought a way out. Spiders as big as hands crawled along the ceiling above her, their bulbous clusters of eyes following her every move – and they were just the babies. Their mother was somewhere, just out of sight, a massive thing, larger than a horse, that barely managed to squeeze through the narrow passages.
There was light ahead, and something chittering behind her. Cera had to keep moving; if she stopped, the spiders would drop and spin a web about her, and then she’d be nothing but meat for Mother Spider.
She hurried forwards, seeking the light, praying it was the way out, but it was just another chamber, the centre of the earthen floor dug up like a waiting grave. With shaking hands, her legs trembling, she approached the hole, her hand going to her mouth as its contents were gradually revealed.
Elena Anborn lay there, her throat cut, blood staining her white shift. Her eyes were empty, her skin like alabaster. There was something big and black crawling from her mouth.
Cera stared, swallowing a sob. I did this. I killed her. I loved her and I killed her.
Then Elena’s eyes suddenly flickered into life. They bore through Cera’s skull, accusing her, condemning her. Betrayer!
Her hand came up and she pointed – not at Cera, though it felt to the young woman as if a finger speared her chest. Elena’s finger pointed straight up, and her eyes were mute with horror and vindication.
Cera looked up, and then she really did scream. Timori, her precious little Timori, hung bound in spider-silk, crying, struggling, helpless. She reached for him instinctively, though he was far from her reach.
Then the darkness of the ceiling above him moved and light glistened on dark, mottled carapaces. Spindly black legs waved and myriad eyes stared down at her. Digestive fluids poured from a maw full of toothy hooks. Mother Spider filled the ceiling.
Cera jerked left and right, but the doors were gone. Something gripped her arm, she screamed again, and—
—woke.
‘My lady! My lady! Please, wake up!’
Cera stared blankly into Tarita’s frightened eyes. The tiny Jhafi girl clutched her arm, right there, but still Cera could half-see that hideous chamber. When she registered the pewter cup her maid was holding out, she snatched it and tipped it over her own face. Water splashed down her neck and chest, wetting her sheets and pillow, though they were already sweat-soaked and tangled about her like thick cords of spiderweb.
She dropped the cup, seized Tarita and hugged her.
Two weeks ago she had sacrificed Elena to save Timori and herself. Two weeks of this: the living world and the dream world blending and blurring until sometimes she couldn’t tell which was real. Both were nightmares; both were surreal.
I betrayed my people to save them – to save Timi.
To save them, I had to sacrifice Elena. She was supposed to die, but she’s still alive, walking around this palace as if nothing happened. Except it’s not her at all: Gyle says that Rutt Sordell now inhabits Elena’s body.
These magi are monsters.
‘What time is it, Tarita?’
‘The first bell just chimed,’ the little maid replied. She was only fifteen, though she’d seen much – more than Cera, of certain things. ‘Shall I open the curtains?’
‘Please.’ Perhaps the sunshine would burn away the after-images of Mother Spider that kept invading her vision. She sniffed, wrinkled her nose. Her bedclothes smelled of sweat. ‘I need a bath.’ I am Queen-Regent. I have to get up. I have to face the day.
Tarita pulled open the curtains, then went to order the bath. Cera sat up slowly, plucking at the nightdress that clung to her skin. The mirror on the far wall reflected her: tangled black hair falling past her shoulders. A long, strong face, serious and severe, more handsome than pretty. Normally olive-brown skin growing pale from too much time spent in shadows. She’d ventured outside the palace only once these past two weeks, since it happened, and that was to bury her sister in a private ceremony. There had been no mourning period, no public funeral, for Solinde had been branded a traitor for aiding the Gorgio family in their attempted coup last year. Cera knew the accusation to be false, but she also knew that the real Solinde had been slain during the coup and replaced with a magi-shapeshifter called Coin. It was Coin they had buried, and of course she could tell no one. Who knew where the real Solinde lay?
She froze suddenly at a tiny tell-tale sound and her eyes flashed to the interior wall where a panel began to slide open and black spider-legs waggled through. Her hand went to her mouth as the legs became fingers, fingers in a black leather glove that slid the panel fully open.
A man stepped through.
Her hands went protectively to her breasts as she flinched.
‘Get up,’ the man told her in his flat, terse voice. ‘You have work to do.’ He locked her bedroom door, then walked to the window.
She cringed. ‘Yes, Magister Gyle.’ She pulled a sheet about her and got out of bed.
Gurvon Gyle’s eyes roamed the room as they always did, noticing changes, anything different, out of place. Then his eyes came back to her and he exhaled impatiently. ‘Girl, I have no interest in your body. Dress, and listen.’
She dressed behind a screen nevertheless, pulling on undergarments, then a plain shift, enough to preserve some decorum until she bathed.
Gyle’s eyes weighed her as she stood silent before him. ‘You’re not sleeping,’ he said eventually. ‘I send you sleeping draughts and you do not take them: why?’
‘I don’t like them.’ Because if I take your potions, I can’t wake and Mother Spider catches me.
His eyes rolled. ‘That’s up to you, but you look awful. People are talking.’
She hung her head. If I can’t sleep it’s because of you, and what you persuaded me to do.
Over and over she asked herself: could I have done differently? And the answer was always: of course. But what she had done, faced with hidden enemies whose reach and power seemed immeasurable, was to betray her own protector, Elena, in return for the promise that she and more importantly, her younger brother Timori, the rightful king, be allowed to live. It had been hard to agree to such a thing, after all Elena had done for her. To then have to watch it unfold had been utterly ghastly.
Gyle reached out, and though she flinched from his touch, he lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. ‘Listen, Cera, we’ve pretended you’re ill long enough. The world rolls on, and there are things that must now happen to preserve what you have gained.’
Gained? What have I gained?
‘You’ve saved your life,’ Gyle reminded her, in that creepy way he had of answering her unspoken thoughts if she didn’t guard them. ‘You’ve saved Timori’s life. You’ve saved House Nesti from extinction. You have the pledge of Francis Dorobon that your family’s soldiery will be permitted to live; there will be no purge. You’ve saved Javon from being a target for the Crusader armies. You have gained much.’
She jerked her chin from his grip and stepped back a pace, out of his reach. ‘Those aren’t gains, just controlled losses.’
He smiled wryly. ‘Call it what you will. Cera, today your Inner Council meets. You must be there to ensure the next steps take place.’
‘Where will you be?’
‘Watching. Listening. Rutt Sordell will be beside you. He will steer the conversation as needed.’
She shuddered. Rutt Sordell: Gyle’s right-hand man, now in possession of Elena Anborn’s body by some evil of the gnosis. When Gyle had first proposed his bargain, he’d said that Elena would die, quickly and mercifully, but he’d lied. Instead, Gyle’s former lover and then enemy had been battered half to death before having her throat cut, only to then be saved and inhabited by Sordell. How or why, Cera could not comprehend. She knew only that it was an atrocity.
‘Cera,’ Gyle said, in the tones a tired parent might use with a stupid child, ‘our bargain is far from fulfilled. House Nesti has clung to power here in Javon through aligning itself with the majority Jhafi and their desire to join the shihad. But that is madness: the shihad will be destroyed. Rondian legions are invincible, and there are two legions – ten thousand men – coming here inside a month. Each legion will have fifteen magi and several units of construct cavalry – have you ever seen a construct, girl?’ He shook his head. ‘Well, you will, very soon.’
‘My people will fight,’ she whispered.
‘No, they must not, not unless you wish to see them exterminated. You must arrange capitulation. Only then, when you’ve handed over this kingdom intact to Francis Dorobon, will you have fulfilled what we agreed.’
‘But I … you—’
‘You agreed, girl, to step aside and let me save your people. That does not mean that you no longer have a role. Last year, when you were forced to pick up the crown, you became a beacon for your people: for both Rimoni and Jhafi. If you show them a direction, they will take it.’
‘You don’t understand. It’s not like that, I don’t have that influence, I’m just a girl,’ she responded, aware she was babbling like a child but unable to stop.
‘You underestimate yourself, Cera. By defeating the Gorgio last year, you have become Javon’s banner. Only you can unite them right now.’
She glared at him. ‘I am nothing any more.’
He stepped closer, moving too fast, and caught her shoulders. ‘Cera, listen to me: you need to stay calm, and see this through. There is no room for dissent any more. If you cannot convince your Inner Council that all is well, I’m going to take a hand, and I will not be gentle.’ His grey eyes measured her, his face hard, matter-of-fact. She felt helpless in his grip.
The Jhafi are right: these magi are demons. They are afreet, pale-skinned maggots from Shaitan’s living corpse. There was only ever one good mage: and I had her killed – no, worse: possessed.
She cringed as Gyle reached out and brushed a tear from her right eye. ‘Courage, girl. The lives of your royal councillors and your entire people depend on you holding your nerve.’
*
Brochena Palace was a maze of passages. There were many more than most knew of, tiny walkways behind false walls, hidden niches and crawl-spaces, where someone with skill and knowledge could creep unseen and learn all that was hidden.
Gurvon Gyle slipped along the passage that ran parallel to the Council Chamber, to the section of the wall with the observation hole. He’d enhanced it, removing a brick, then creating the illusion that it was still there. No childish false eyes or easily detectable holes for him. The only risk was a cleaner poking their broom through, but he stopped it up with a real brick when he wasn’t using it.
Now he pulled the brick aside and peered through, just as Godspeaker Acmed finished the Mantra of Family, which enabled the women to forsake their bekira-shrouds and speak openly. Cera and Elena pulled off the shapeless black cloaks and the meeting came to order. Gyle’s view was from behind one row of councillors, with Cera seated to his left, furthest from the door. Elena Anborn sat on her right hand – except it wasn’t Elena, of course: it was Rutt Sordell. Elena’s face was hard
for him to look at: she seemed subtly wrong, to one who knew her so well. But no one else noticed. The councillors had been told of a failed attempt on Cera’s life. Solinde had died, and Lorenzo di Kestria, but Cera and Elena had survived and slain the attacker. That was all they needed to know
The others about the table were familiar faces: the faithful Nesti retainers, promoted by Olfuss to the royal bureaucracy when he became king: jovial Master of the Purse Pita Rosco, his bald pate gleaming in the sunlight that was pouring through the high windows. His spiritual opposite, sour old Luigi Ginovisi, the Master of Revenues. Comte Piero Inveglio, the merchant nobleman whose voice tended to carry the most weight. Conservative, bitter Seir Luca Conti, the grizzled knight who led the Nesti soldiery and, by extension, the armies of Javon.
Opposite the Nesti loyalists were the Brochena faction: Don Francesco Perdonello, the tall, high-browed Chancellor, head of the bureaucracy, and two of his departmental heads who seldom spoke except to confirm Perdonello’s utterances. Signor Ivan Prato, the young Sollan drui whom Cera preferred to the older, more highly ranked clergy, and of course the pricklish Godspeaker Acmed al-Istan, representing the Amteh Faith, completed the roster.
There was no Lorenzo di Kestria, who was dead, and his role as head of the Queen’s Guard had not yet been filled. Also missing was the urbane Harshal ali-Assam, who had been sent out some months ago to negotiate a deal with the Harkun nomads infesting the southeastern deserts of Javon.
‘My lords, welcome. I apologise for the illness which has incapacitated me these past two weeks. But I am well again, and there is much to do.’ Cera’s voice carried clearly to him. Over the past year she’d learnt how to run a meeting, dominating rooms of men many years her senior – an unexpected development, thrust upon her when Gyle had murdered her father and mother. And yet here we are, working together.