by D. P. Prior
The air was thick with smoke and the odour of stale beer and sweat. The place was heaving, all the tables taken and the spaces between packed with standing drinkers. Shader was hit by the wall of noise—raucous laughter, barking voices, the clink of coins and the chink of glasses.
He forced a passage to the window and peered out. Two Imperial soldiers were passing from view up the street. They must have been right behind him. He waited a minute to make sure the way was clear and then made his way back to the entrance.
‘Wait!’ a woman called from the huddle.
Shader’s hand went to the gladius, but he resisted the urge to draw it. He turned and looked up from beneath the brim of his hat.
A dirty-faced woman was squeezing through the crowd, her chestnut hair in greasy disarray as if she’d been dragged backwards through a bush.
Her clothes were ripped and tatty—they may have once been some sort of servant’s uniform. She met his gaze, ran her fingers through her hair, and bumped up her breasts.
Shader turned, a snarl half-formed on his face.
‘Wait!’ she repeated, touching his shoulder.
‘Sorry, lady,’ Shader said. ‘I’m consecrated.’
‘What? No. How dare you!’
A waft of sickly perfume inflamed his nostrils. He backed into the entrance porch, dragging her with him. She opened her mouth to say something, but Shader took her jaw in one hand and pushed her against the wall.
‘Out with it,’ he hissed. ‘Who are you?’
‘A friend, you idiot!’ She almost spat the words at him. ‘Or at least a friend of a friend.’
Shader narrowed his eyes, willing her to explain.
‘My name’s Lallia.’ She extricated herself from his grip and straightened her top.
Shader’s eyes flicked to the mountain of soft flesh threatening to burst free of its constraints and then met her cattish eyes.
‘I know where your friend is,’ she said. ‘Rhiannon.’
‘What? How—?’
Lallia pressed herself against him and pulled his face close to hers. Shader struggled, but then her lips smothered his as the door opened.
‘Make way in the name of the Emperor.’
A pair of soldiers pushed roughly past and entered the bar.
Shader’s head reeled with Lallia’s scent, and the warm wetness of her lips sent fire through his veins. She pulled away and whispered urgently.
‘I went with Elias Wolf to rescue her, but we were attacked. She’s being held at Dead Man’s Torch. Dr Cadman has her. I used to work with—’
‘Cadman?’ He had Rhiannon at the old beacon tower? Shader’s head whirled with possibilities, but he couldn’t focus. Other matters clamoured for his attention.
‘No time,’ he said. ‘I have to get to the Templum.’
—Rhiannon!
‘I’ll come with you,’ Lallia said, running her hand down his arm. ‘No,’ Shader shoved her aside. ‘It’s too dangerous. Wait here.’ 270
She pouted and was about to say something, but he didn’t wait to hear what it was.
‘Shit,’ he said through clenched teeth as he sprinted back into the alleyways. He couldn’t be in two places at once. The beacon was too far; he had to choose the templum. ‘Oh, Rhiannon,’ he groaned before shutting his mind to her plight and bitterly entrusting her fate to Nous.
***
Gaston reached under the bed and dragged out his sword.
‘What are you doing?’ Ioana asked.
‘The Sicarii killed my dad,’ he said, drawing the blade. ‘They’ll not do the same to my friends.’
‘But Gaston, you’ve made a choice. This is not our way.’
Maybe it wouldn’t have been his way, thought Gaston, if Shadrak the Unseen hadn’t shown him the futility of peace. He winced, catching his train of thought; he was starting to sound like Shader—desiring all that Nous had to offer, but never quite able to release his grip on the sword. Now was not the time to worry about it. The choice, as he saw it, was simple: fight or be murdered. Much as he admired Ioana’s faith, his own was still a frost-hardened seed in comparison. Fallen at the first hurdle, Gaston. He could almost hear his dad’s condemnation from beyond the grave.
Gaston took hold of the door handle and pressed his ear to the wood.
Silence.
Waving Ioana back, he wrenched the door open and darted into the corridor. He swung his sword at a black shape to his left, but felt something sharp pierce his side. He slashed blindly behind him and heard a cry as his blade tore into soft flesh. Whirling, he met the stab of the first assassin and kicked out at the man’s knee, snapping it backwards and sending him screaming to the ground.
A lean man, cloaked and hooded, was kneeling mere feet away and bringing a hand crossbow to bear. Gaston dived as the bolt was released, rolled to his feet, and impaled the man on the tip of his sword.
Up ahead he could see more of the dark figures in the refectory. He heard Cadris crying for mercy and ran at the assassins. His first blow was parried by a shortsword as two Sicarii spun to face him whilst a third went for Hugues and Cadris.
Gaston turned a thrust from the shortsword and stepped back as the other Sicarii produced some sleek silver darts. The crash of Hugues upturning the refectory table distracted the dart-thrower, but the swordsman leapt to the attack with a ferocity that stunned Gaston. The man cut and stabbed with dazzling speed. It was all Gaston could do to block the blows; he had no chance of launching a counterattack.
As he backed down the corridor parrying desperately, he glimpsed Ioana’s despairing face peering from behind the door to her room.
Cadris screamed from the refectory and then something pierced the skin of Gaston’s shoulder—the dart-thrower had got his focus back. Consumed suddenly by an old familiar fury, Gaston felt all uncertainty pass. He made a fierce parry that turned his assailant’s sword, and in that moment struck the man with a thudding left hook. The assassin staggered and then found Gaston’s blade skewering his belly. Another dart hit Gaston, this time in the thigh. He felt dampness around the wound to his side, and coldness where the first dart had struck him. He lunged towards the dart-thrower, but was hit twice more as the assassin skipped nimbly back. Giving up all hope of defending himself, Gaston ducked his head and charged, receiving another hit before he bowled the assassin over backwards into the refectory.
Cadris was writhing on the ground, a deep cut to his abdomen, and Hugues was holding sternly to his assailant’s wrists as the man sought a way to stab him.
Gaston hacked wildly at his own opponent, who was frantically seeking to regain his feet. More hooded figures appeared at the windows and then the room was filled with the sound of breaking glass as they smashed their way inside. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw an assassin kick down Ioana’s door. It was over, and all Gaston could feel was the rage of despair. He delivered a vicious cut to the dart-thrower’s head and followed it up with a thrust through the groin. The assassin screamed and spasmed, but then two of the newcomers pounced at him. He blocked a swing from the blade of the first, but the second caught him between the ribs. As the blood bubbled to his mouth, Gaston disembowelled the man with a blistering riposte.
He tried to turn in an attempt to reach Ioana, but something struck his lower back. Ioana was standing beside the wreck of her door, her attacker dead at her feet, and Deacon Shader was striding towards the refectory with two bloodied swords in his hands.
Gaston hacked feebly at his opponent, but the man easily blocked his blow and moved in for the kill. All sensation had seeped from Gaston’s body and he started to swoon, no longer caring about the blade about to strike. Shader yelled and hurled his gladius with such ferocity that it nearly tore the head from the assassin’s shoulders. As Shader surged past him into the refectory, Gaston felt Ioana stroking his head and realized that he had fallen and she was cradling him like a sick child.
Dimly he saw Shader fighting with bewildering skill and speed, his longswo
rd a glittering blur. There was panic on the faces of the Sicarii as they realized the deadly power of their opponent. Shader whirled to meet a desperate backstab and sliced through the assassin’s wrist. The man fell on his arse and tried to scrabble away, but Shader’s sword skewered him like a pig. Shader’s eyes were like pools of ice as he dispatched the last of the assassins with a cut to the jugular. The monk Shader had given complete sway to a raw killer, heartless and unswayable. He turned a slow circle and then lowered his head as if disappointed there was no one left to kill.
Hugues retrieved Shader’s gladius and offered it to him with either reverence or fear. Shader ignored him, dropped his longsword and fell to his knees at Gaston’s side.
Shader appeared limned with silver, a spectre of moonlight. A misty corona surrounded his head, warring with the deep shadows of his face. Another face came into sight behind Shader’s shoulder—a woman, perhaps an angel with hair like flames. She was holding a lantern that blazed so harshly Gaston had to blink away tears. When he looked again, Shader had become a blur flickering in and out of existence.
‘Mater—?’ Gaston’s voice rasped like a whetstone on a nicked blade. He coughed and dug deeper. ‘Did I—?’
Fingers brushed the hair away from his face—Ioana’s?
‘Oh, Gaston,’ someone said. He thought it was a woman.
Wetness touched his cheek. Was it raining?
Shader’s mouth was moving, a smudge of twisting blackness.
‘…fought well, Gaston…made…proud.’
‘Dad? Is that you?’ Gaston’s head sank deeper into the pillow and someone—Mum most likely—pulled the covers over him. He tried to see, but his eyes were so heavy. Look tomorrow, he told himself. I’ll look tomorrow.
Someone wailed.
It’ll keep—
***
Shader reached out a hand to Ioana, but she pulled away, hugging Gaston to her breast and shuddering as she wept.
Soror Agna limped from her room, stooped and crooked as if she’d finally started to lose her battle with age. Hugues helped Cadris to his feet. The fat priest was bleeding from cuts to his face and arms, but he’d still managed to cover Gaston’s body with a white sheet. Not a sheet, Shader realized as blood soaked through the material like the blossoming of a poppy—it was an altar cloth, though where had he—?
Sweet perfume wafted to his nostrils as the woman with the lantern crouched at his side. Shader stared blankly for a moment, his mind smothered by an obscuring pall. He looked from her to Gaston, to Ioana and back again. The woman from the tavern. He acknowledged her with a perfunctory nod. Lallia, the friend of Elias Wolf. She too was bloodied and shaken.
‘You should have stayed behind.’ Shader said. He felt his lip curling, almost snarled. Isn’t that what he’d told her to do? Wait at the Mermaid?
‘Remember the three you killed on the way in?’ Lallia asked, her head cocked to one side.
‘Yes—’
‘There were four.’ Lallia’s cheeks puffed up as if she were going to be sick. She raised a blood-drenched kitchen knife in a shaking hand. ‘Had a crossbow pointed at your back. The blood’s all his.’ Her grip failed and the knife clattered to the floor.
Shader sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes and stood. Ioana watched him as if she expected him to do something, say something. She cradled Gaston as if her body warmth could revive him; held him towards Shader as if he had power over the dead. The cold touch of defeat crawled through his veins.
Agna somehow managed to kneel down beside Ioana, joints cracking like dry twigs underfoot. As she drew the cloth over Gaston’s face, Shader’s failure bubbled up to his throat and he leaned against the wall, swallowing back bile.
He caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye and craned his neck, expecting to be struck down by some new enemy.
‘Mater,’ Zara Gen cried, stumbling down the corridor towards them, his crimson robes clinging like self-accusation. ‘Mater, I’m so sorry.’
NOUS IS NOT NOUS
‘Both your mother and father are right, Deacon,’ Aristodeus said. ‘The world is like that: full of paradox.’ Deacon lowered his sword. How could you marry peace with struggle? Service with power? Love with the sword? Silver streaked towards his face and, with an instinctive parry, he turned the philosopher’s blade.
‘Never drop your guard, my boy—even in the midst of debate. Your mind must be sharper than a razor, yet your awareness must be divided, concentric rings of widening focus rippling out from a still point. You must—’
Deacon’s sword slipped between the words and touched the flesh of Aristodeus’s neck. The philosopher’s eyes bulged. It was the first time Deacon had seen him shocked. The old man’s face tightened with suppressed rage, but then he smiled and gave that sagacious nod that said he’d planned for this all along.
‘Excellent. Now you’re getting it.’ Aristodeus pushed the edge of Deacon’s sword away and thrust his own blade into the ground. ‘Killing for Nous,’ he returned to the former point. ‘It’s why your father never joined the Elect; why he never embraced the faith like your mother did. It is the tension which defines you, makes you what you are.’
‘Confused?’ Deacon said, ramming his sword back into its scabbard. ‘What’s that got to do with the clear sight you say I need?’
Aristodeus sighed and put an arm around Deacon’s shoulder. He reeked of sweat from their exertions, and wisps of white hair were plastered to his scalp. Deacon was as tall as his mentor; he figured he probably moved like him too. Thought like him even. The philosopher had moulded him for so long now, Deacon could scarcely remember a time in his life when Aristodeus hadn’t smothered him like an overprotective mother.
‘Nous isn’t what he seems, Deacon.’ Aristodeus leaned in close to whisper. ‘But don’t tell anyone I said that—least of all your mother. Gods come and go, changing with the times and the needs of the people. Truth, however, truth remains constant.’
Deacon stepped away from the philosopher. ‘Nous is not real?’ Anger bubbled in his belly like magma.
Aristodeus rolled his head and chuckled. ‘Is that what I said?’
‘Well—’
The philosopher tapped his temples. ‘Think, Deacon. Think! Please tell me I’ve not been pissing in the wind all these years. Head over heart, isn’t that what I taught you?’
‘Yes, but—’
Aristodeus opened his mouth to say something, but then rubbed his beard and shook his head.
‘Some things you’ll have to work out for yourself. Nous, my young friend, is most definitely real; but he is, as I have said, not what he seems.’
Deacon felt like he was being mocked and didn’t like it one bit.
‘So I’ve been duped. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Not at all, Deacon. These things are mysteries—not because they can’t be explained, but because they only come to us a bit at a time. Do exactly as you’ve been doing: keep to your devotions, as they may yet serve you well. Question constantly, but at the same time act “as if” it’s all literally true, down to the very last Ipsissimal proclamation on the Archon’s favourite tipple.’
But Nous was supposed to be a person. Isn’t that what Aristodeus had taught him from the start? A person of love? If that’s the case, why did he require the use of a sword? Why did the Ipsissimus need an army? If Nous was so loving, then—
***
A footfall startled Shader awake. His back and neck ached from being hunched over on a pew. Ain, he was tired; more tired than he could ever remember being. He looked up to see Lallia, blood-smeared and wild-looking, like one of the Furies from Aristodeus’s tales.
‘The Mater says the lad who died was going to join the priests.’ Lallia spoke almost whimsically, as if her mind were somewhere else. She sat herself beside him, frowning at the altar.
Shader’s muscles bunched under the onslaught of a molten stream. Whenever he tried to picture Gaston, he saw Rhiannon; saw what his protég�
� had done to her. His fingers clutched at the air as if it were Gaston’s throat, and at the same time his eyes blurred with tears.
‘Couldn’t have seen him making it.’ Lallia brushed against him, placed a hand on his back. ‘Didn’t look the sort to cower like the rest of them.’
Shader nodded vigorously, his body shaking with unnameable emotions. ‘He knew how to fight.’
‘I’d say. You know what really pisses me off?’ Lallia turned her face to look right into Shader’s eyes. He was beyond caring about the exposure of his grief. His gaze never wavered from her verdant stare. ‘The way those priests mourn for him as if he were a disappointment. You know, the Mater even kicked his sword like it was some kind of des…desec… What’s the bloody word?’
—Desecration.
‘They’d sooner he did nothing?’ Shader rasped through clenched teeth.
‘You’d think,’ Lallia said, looping her arm in his. ‘Some people are just so up their own…You know what I mean.’
Shader forced a smile. Lallia seemed to take some relief from it. Her lips parted, showing a flash of white teeth.
‘You knew him, right?’
‘I trained him,’ Shader said. ‘Made him what he was…’
‘But?’
‘It doesn’t matter. He should be judged by what he did with his last breath.’ —Not by what he did to Rhiannon.
‘Fair do,’ Lallia said. ‘Now, will you walk with me?’
‘Why?’ Shader was still half-dazed. Loss and grief had wedged themselves between the two sides of his nature, unweaving them, separating the strands into impossible allies.
—Mother and Father.
‘I need to feel the night air,’ Lallia said, ‘and take some little pleasure in being alive. It’s been hard, these past few days.’ Her look had turned to pleading, longing. ‘So much death.’
Shader nodded and stood. As they left the templum, he felt only its utter emptiness.
She rested her head on his shoulder as they strolled in the direction of the Forest Walk. They passed along broad avenues lit by the Ancients’ lanterns atop their towering posts. The chill was restorative, cleansing; the warmth of Lallia against his side like a benison.