Best Laid Plans

by D. P. Prior

  ‘The Elect were formed in response to the Blightey affair. When the Ipsissimus was murdered, his Monas was taken.’

  Shader knew all that. Blightey had eventually been cornered with the help of the Grey Abbot. ‘That’s ancient knowledge.’ Shader suddenly thumped himself on the head. ‘Idiot,’ he said. ‘The Monas concealed a piece of the statue, just like the Grey Abbot’s.’

  Osric nodded. ‘That’s the raison d’être of our Order, brother Shader. The Elect are trained with the sole purpose of protecting the artefact from those who would steal it. There have been many more attempts. Ipsissimi have been attacked by evil forces that have driven them insane or killed them. It is a function of the Saphra Society to ensure the artefact is safely passed on to the successor. You would have known all this if you’d not abandoned your duty as Keeper.’

  Shader spun to face the wraith. ‘What? How could you…?’

  Osric pointed with a gaseous finger to the Sword of the Archon sheathed at Shader’s hip. ‘The Ipsissimus would never permit the Archon’s sword to leave Aeterna, and only the Keeper can wield it. There can be no doubt that you won the competition, for the sword follows your desires. I may have been blinded by its light when you entered the dome, but I am not blind to reason. If you had stayed in Aeterna you would have known of the Saphra Society. The Keeper of the Sword of the Archon sits at its head.’

  Shader felt giddy. Aristodeus must have known all this. That night at the docks he’d encouraged Shader to flee to Sahul. And the Grey Abbot— he’d been the one to suggest the tournament.

  ‘This Society of yours,’ Shader’s voice was hoarse. ‘Who founded it?’

  ‘The Ipsissimus,’ Osric said, ‘but on the advice of the Grey Abbot and one other.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Shader said. ‘A bald man in white robes? Goes by the name of Aristodeus?’

  Osric’s eyes narrowed to glowing slits. ‘Yes, but how do you know this? He must have been dead for centuries.’

  The more Shader pieced together about his old mentor, the less he liked it. ‘There’s obviously more to our beloved philosopher than meets the eye. What do you make of the fact that he knew I was planning to bring the sword to Sahul? In fact, he positively encouraged it.’

  The wraith’s misty body rippled and his eyes flashed. ‘Ain preserve us,’ he whispered. ‘This is the time of Unweaving!’ Osric floated away into the chamber and then turned back to face Shader. ‘Aristodeus said the time would come again, but I never thought I’d live to see it.’ He looked down at his ghostly arms and chuckled. ‘Now there’s irony for you.’

  Shader looked blankly from the wraith to Barek.

  ‘Does this have anything to do with the epic of the Reckoning?’ the lad asked. ‘Only Elias said something about the Unweaving. Said it had begun before, but had been stopped. Something to do with the Technocrat of the Ancients.’

  ‘Sektis Gandaw,’ Shader said. ‘The man who tried to un-create. Wasn’t he betrayed by his own creatures?’

  Barek was pacing, face furrowed with concentration. ‘The dwarves,’ he said. ‘They stole the statue and gave it to Huntsman’s gods. You know, the spider, the toad, and the crocodile.’

  Osric’s body was throwing off streams of black mist and his eyes were like flames. ‘Aristodeus told us he was there, that he would have failed completely had it not been for the dwarves.’

  Shader’s head was pounding. He’d heard all that stuff about the dwarves and the gods before. Elias had wittered on about it incessantly back at Oakendale. Rhiannon had been his sounding board. Shader had spent more than one night drunk on scrumpy listening to the bard’s crazy histories. But Aristodeus’s involvement in all this, that was news to him and it made his skin crawl. There was something shouting at the bottom of his mind, clamouring for recognition, but every time he tried to focus in on it he was met with emptiness.

  ‘We must get the statue back,’ Shader said. ‘If Shadrak’s taking it to the Anglesh Isles it can only mean one thing.’

  ‘Mawgs?’ Barek said.

  ‘Sektis Gandaw’s creatures,’ Shader said. ‘Shadrak must be working for him.’

  ‘I will go with you,’ Osric said. ‘This must be the path Ain has prepared for me. This is the way of my redemption.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Shader said. ‘I need to think.’

  ‘If you have Osric with you, then maybe I should rejoin the White Order,’ Barek said.

  Shader shook his head to clear it. ‘But what about the Emperor?’

  Barek puffed out his cheeks. ‘If I run into him, I’ll have to change his mind.’

  ‘You’ll never sway him with words,’ Shader said.

  Barek shrugged and merely offered Shader his hand. The two embraced and then Shader walked from the dome with Osric drifting alongside. He watched as Barek headed back through the forest in the direction of the city.

  ‘What now?’ Osric asked.

  ‘Port Sarum,’ Shader said. ‘And if we’re lucky, we’ll find ourselves a ship bound for the Anglesh Isles.’

  ‘Water,’ Osric said with evident distaste. ‘I can hardly wait.’

  THE PRISONER OF ARNBROOK HOUSE

  Lallia peeked through the crack of the closet door. Cadman was passing along the corridor with a corpse-knight in tow, a huge shogger with its jaw hanging off and one eyeball swinging from a thread. It wore rusty chainmail with broken links and a once-white surcoat sporting the Nousian Monas. Maybe that would shut the bloody liberals up, she thought with some satisfaction. All that crap about the Emperor being paranoid and intolerant of difference. She’d known from the word go the Nousians were shifty bastards. More than that, they were downright evil.

  It all went wrong the day Zara Gen received that old tramp, Jarmin, and she’d been the one to greet him. She knew he was trouble from the minute she clapped eyes on him, but she’d assumed the Governor knew more about the situation than she did. Lallia clenched her teeth. Funny how you think you know someone only to discover later on that you got it completely wrong. She wouldn’t be voting for him next election, that’s for sure. That’s assuming he wasn’t dead along with the rest of the council.

  Lallia began to wonder if she should have mentioned something about Cadman after she’d walked in on him. Maybe if she’d warned Governor Gen, the slaughter could have been averted.

  Problem was, Cadman’s dodgy pills had been good. More than good. And the perfume he’d given her in return for cleaning up his mess was still strong on her skin—even after all this time holed up in a closet with only a bucket to shit in and nothing to eat. At least he’d not been lying about that: it was potent stuff and she’d not had a cold night since. Not until the death-knights had come, that is.

  Cadman checked another window catch—three times as usual—and waddled along to the next. The death-knight watched the way they had come, red eyes taking in every inch of the corridor. Lallia ducked back behind the door as the skull turned in her direction. When she heard its shuffling footfalls move away she looked again. As she’d expected, Cadman was fiddling with the lock on Zara Gen’s office door. Another death-knight stood guard outside, hands resting on the pommel of a broadsword.

  Cadman stroked the end of his moustache, his ample frame quivering like jelly. With one thumb thrust into the pocket of his velvet waistcoat, he rapped on the door and entered, leaving the big death-knight and the guard outside. If there was anyone left alive in Arnbrook House, you could bet that’s where they’d be. If it was the Governor, and if Lallia could find a way to get him out, who knows what the reward would be?

  Lallia slid her back down the wall of the closet and wrapped her arms around her chest. It was a total bitch that Cadman had skeletons for guards. They never needed relieving, and so she’d had no opportunity to make a run for it.

  Matted strands of chestnut hair hung over her eyes. If this went on much longer she’d never pull again, no matter how good the perfume. Still, she thought, giving her bum a pat, it wouldn’t do her figure
any harm going without food for a few days.

  She groaned as she realized she needed to pee. The stench from the bucket was getting unbearable, but what choice did she have? She swooned as she stood, steadying herself against the wall, and then pinched her nose shut as she moved to the back of the closet.

  ***

  Elias reclined in the Governor’s chair, tilting it onto its rear legs and putting his feet on the desk. Zara Gen glared at him from the seat opposite, his eyes saying what his lips could not. He’d been gagged and bound since he’d tried to nip out the door when the death-knights brought Elias in. He was lucky to be alive, Elias reckoned, as the skeleton on guard had grabbed him by the neck and raised its sword to strike. Zara Gen had broken free and scampered back inside the office, apologizing profusely, and the skeleton had remained outside. Within the hour, though, two more knights in rusty armour had come in and tied him to the chair. When he’d started to protest, they’d silenced him with the gag.

  ‘Have I told you the one about the geezer from Britannia who slips through the gaps between worlds and ends up in some crazy afterlife where his bint’s waiting for him?’

  Zara Gen’s eyes rolled into the back of his head.

  ‘Funny ol’ world, that one. You see, our protagonist is the only person not really dead and he ends up with all these super powers. Strength of a titan, speed of a cat. He can even bound for yards at a time like some demonic kangaroo.’

  Zara Gen shuffled the chair away from Elias.

  ‘Just passing the time. Nothing like a bit of confinement for reviewing stories and learning lyrics. What’s up Guv, potty time?’ Elias swung his feet off the table and sauntered over to the en suite latrine. ‘Don’t know what you been eating, Guv, but it sure doesn’t smell nice.’

  Zara Gen growled beneath the gag.

  ‘No? Don’t need the pan?’

  Zara Gen was silent.

  ‘Here’s a gag for you, if you’ll excuse the pun. What do you call a politician when he’s always busy?’

  More silence.

  ‘No? Tied up. Next one: What do you call a politician who can’t speak? A blessing. Sorry, not too good, that one. Don’t blame you for not laughing—not that you could if you wanted to. Cheer up, Guv, ol’ fat boy’ll be back before you know it and then the fun will really start.’

  Zara Gen remained a sullen presence.

  ‘You are one tough audience. Sure you don’t want a piss? No? OK. Don’t mind if I nip in for a Jimmy? Only all this waiting for the big bad necromancer upsets my bladder.’

  A sharp rap at the door startled him.

  ‘Quiet now, Guv.’ Elias rushed back behind the desk and seated himself. ‘Looks like playtime’s over.’

  The enormous bulk of Dr Cadman lumbered into the office. Elias caught a glimpse of the skeleton guard and a huge death-knight beside it before Cadman pulled the door shut and lowered himself onto the edge of the desk.

  ‘I need you to tell me all you know about the Statue of Eingana,’ he said amiably, ‘and this Deacon Shader who so rattled my dear friend Callixus.’

  Elias clamped his jaw shut. He’d shown enough indignity at the templum. It was obvious he wasn’t going to get out of this alive, so he might as well put up a fight.

  Cadman sighed. ‘I really don’t have the time for this. There’s a veritable ocean of Imperial troops setting up camp outside the city and I don’t plan on sticking around to find out what they want.’

  With a slight gesture of his hand the air about him shimmered and the skin melted from his body. Fat withered into leathery strips that clung to mottled bones; the eyes sunk into empty cavities, and fleshy lips gave way to rotting teeth. Elias gagged and looked away from the decomposing corpse that now sat before him, but he could do nothing to dispel the pungent odour of decay and the cold unnatural terror seeping through his veins.

  ‘There are many means of coercion, little man,’ Cadman rasped. ‘Trust me, I’ve seen more than anyone should of that sort of thing. But out of all of them I find the tortures of the soul the most efficacious. Do you have any idea what a liche can do to your humanity? And of course, with the nature of my magic, the suffering doesn’t have to stop at the point of death.

  ‘You know, I learnt a good deal from my apprenticeship to Otto Blightey, not all of it pleasant, I’m sure you’ll understand. I’ll never forget his deftness at impaling; but it wasn’t so much his ability with a stake that impressed me: it was what he did to the victims when they should already have been dead.’

  Elias began to blurt out everything he knew about the Statue of Eingana and then recounted the coming of Deacon Shader to Oakendale, his routing of the mawgs, and the founding of the White Order. Finally, he told the liche of Shader’s love for Rhiannon.

  Cadman nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘I have noticed,’ he said nonchalantly, ‘a presence, something shadowy and rather sinister attuned to power of Eingana.’ He cast a sideways look at the bard. ‘Do you think it’s Sektis Gandaw?’

  Elias frowned. ‘Difficult to say. The statue’s always had its fair share of stalkers, not least of all Eingana’s own brother, the Demiurgos.’

  Cadman stood and resumed his corpulence. He took his time siting his pince-nez on the bridge of his nose and then tapped his breast pocket three times. Plucking out a silver case, he flipped it open and selected a cigarette.

  ‘One other thing,’ Cadman said, lighting up with a shiny Zippo Elias would have given his right arm for. ‘Did my old mentor, Otto Blightey, have any part in the statue’s history?’

  Elias gave a little cough and wished he had the guts to ask for a smoke. ‘That business with the Ipsissimal Monas a few decades after the Reckoning—Blightey found out it concealed an eye of the statue and stole it.’

  Cadman took three quick puffs on his cigarette and raised an eyebrow. ‘And you know this how?’

  Elias tapped the side of his head. ‘Use of the ol’ noddle, how else? Why’d you think they sent the Grey Abbot after him?’

  ‘So,’ Cadman said, ‘the Grey Abbot’s ingenious method of concealing his piece wasn’t original after all. How disappointing.’

  Elias could see he was getting through to Cadman. If he continued to be useful, he might even get out of this with his life. ‘Something similar happened before, according to a tedious religious historian I once read…’

  ‘Alphonse LaRoche?’ Cadman said. ‘Believe me, I’ve read my fair share of him. You’re referring to the burning, of course.’

  ‘Well, well, well, aren’t you just the dark horse.’ Elias, wetted his lips, immediately regretting his choice of words. Cadman showed no reaction. If anything, he looked distracted. Elias redoubled his efforts. ‘On that occasion, long before the Templum rose from the ashes of the Reckoning, Blightey murdered some poor geezer named Hafran Thrall, a sort of forerunner of the Keeper of the Sword of the Archon.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Cadman snapped. ‘Your point?’

  ‘Blightey used the sword to enhance his power.’

  Cadman’s neck cracked as he nodded. ‘It was supposed to make him invulnerable, but he was hunted down and the ritual was interrupted. This is nothing new. It’s all in La Roche.’

  ‘Only part of him was strengthened,’ Elias said. ‘After the religious authorities burned Blightey at the stake, his skull survived, but it was locked in a casket and thrown into the Abyss by the Archon. Guess that’s where everyone thought he belonged.’

  ‘Except Sektis Gandaw, who eventually rescued him,’ Cadman said. ‘But you’re not answering my question.’ Cadman’s eyes blazed at Elias, and dark mist spilled from his bony fingers. ‘Forget everything that happened before the Reckoning. What became of his piece of the statue?’

  ‘It was returned to the Ipsissimus. Not the same Ipsissimus, mind, as Blightey managed to hang onto the eye for quite some time. I think it was Valens II to whom the Monas was restored. It’s said he lived an unnaturally long life, but eventually went mad and threw himself from the roof of the basili
ca. The Monas has been passed down the line of succession ever since. That’s where your friend Shader comes in. Well, not him personally, but his Order.’

  Cadman thrust his face towards Elias, the eyes suddenly black as the Void. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You won’t find any of this in your standard histories,’ Elias said.

  Cadman stood with his back against the door, a corona of cigarette smoke billowing about his head. He peered over the top of his pince-nez, waiting for Elias to resume. Elias didn’t miss the tapping of fat fingers against his thigh. Apparently Cadman didn’t have all day. Elias, however, didn’t want to see what happened next, once he’d finished his tale.

  ‘The Blightey affair had shown the Templum to be vulnerable from within. Blightey was the principle architect of the new religion and had the ear of the Ipsissimus. In short, he was allowed too much access to the ruler of the Templum, and that’s when things started to go wrong.

  ‘Blightey just happened to leave Aeterna for the eremitical life after the Monas disappeared. He wasn’t even suspected at first, and when he returned, having not aged a day, many years and a couple of Ipsissimi later, he resumed his position as counsellor and spiritual director.’

  Cadman was nodding vigorously, a long trail of ash hanging from the end of his cigarette. ‘Blightey never mentioned this to me,’ he said. ‘Oh, he liked to gloat about the past; loved the effect of recounting his own twisted history to his agonized victims. I’ll let you into a little secret.’

  Elias winced. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this. If it was a particularly important secret, he doubted he’d be trusted with keeping it.

  ‘It’s what made me run from him in the end,’ Cadman said. ‘The endless lectures in front of the rack, or with some poor former student strapped to a chair…’ Cadman’s eyes wandered to where Zara Gen sat rigid and attentive. ‘…the Pear of Anguish forcing his jaws wide, teeth ripping through gums, breath gasping from a constricted airway. It was as if Blightey had to go on teaching others and then torturing them to death in order to generate some spark of pleasure in his life. Naturally, the more I learned, the more imperilled I became.’