Also available in The Secret of Ji series:
Six Heirs
The Orphan’s Promise
Forthcoming:
The Eternal Master
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2013 by Pierre Grimbert
English translation copyright © 2014 by Matt Ross
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
The Secret of Ji 3: Shadow of the Ancients was first published in 1998 by Les éditions Mnémos as Le Secret de Ji, volume 3: L’Ombre des anciens. Translated from the French by Matt Ross.
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ISBN-13: 9781477825013
ISBN-10: 1477825010
Cover design by Kerrie Robertson
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014905665
CONTENTS
MAP 1
MAP 2
MAP 3
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PROLOGUE
BOOK V: THE OLD COUNTRY
BOOK VI: PILGRIMS
BOOK VII: TO THE MEMORY OF MEN
SHORT ANECDOTAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE KNOWN WORLD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
At the end of the book, the reader will find a “Short Anecdotal Encyclopedia of the Known World,” a glossary that defines certain terms used by the narrator and provides supplementary details that don’t appear in the story, without giving the story away, of course—far from it!
Therefore, the reading of the “Short Anecdotal Encyclopedia” can be done in parallel with the story, at moments the reader finds opportune.
PROLOGUE
A Zü reveals his name only to his peers . . . and his dying victims.
My name is Judge Zamerine, leader of Zuïa’s messengers in the Upper Kingdoms. My power stretches across the six wealthiest kingdoms of the known world. I control four hundred devoted men ready to sacrifice themselves. Each and every one carries the sacred hati. Four hundred elite soldiers, feared even in the smallest, most remote villages.
The greatest kings dare not defy me. They fear Zuïa’s judgment. They fear me. I once considered myself to be the most powerful person north of the Median Sea. I was wrong.
I believe my master to be a god.
Or, at least, an incarnation of one. A servant god of Zuïa, even if my master jeers at the idea. Perhaps he does not know, but he is serving the goddess’s plan, just as I am. I am sure of it.
I should be sure of it.
My newfound vulnerability is heavy and difficult to bear. My master can rid himself of any threat. He is invulnerable. He reads minds. He controls the bodies of others. He can kill with a caress, or a look.
This is not legend. I have seen him do it.
He could have made me his slave, just another miserable soul pacing among the many tens of thousands in his encampment. But I preferred to become his ally.
I put my intelligence at his service. My influence in the Upper Kingdoms is useful to him, and my presence at his side reinforces his hold over the barbarian horde that makes up his army. Our army.
I proved myself to him, and he has recognized my worth. He has granted me a personal guard while we wait for my assistant to return with better men. Soon a hundred of my messengers will gather at my side, while the others await my command. I have never seen anything like it, not since the arenas of Lus’an.
My master gave me a thousand slaves, and I tried to make them live according to Zuïa’s law. It was an interesting experiment. Six hundred of them remain.
My master has a grand project planned, one that exceeds mortal ambitions. He takes no half measures. If he attacks a village, he burns it to the ground. If he punishes a traitor, he will torture the man on the rack for several dékades. Everything my master attempts, he achieves. No hesitation. No weakness.
My master knows exactly what he wants, though he speaks of it to no one. He is the most secretive of men. Even I do not know his face. All I know is his name: Saat.
The king of the Guoris did not have the reputation of an easygoing man. Ossrok, the northerner who commanded the mercenary fleet for the Land of Beauty, stood in front of the king, who did nothing to change this reputation.
“I can hardly congratulate you!” the king shouted. “Yet again, you let some oblivious travelers land on the Sacred Island. And this, despite your supposed vigilance!”
“Usul’s island has not been under surveillance for more than two moons,” the mercenary objected. “Following your orders, Majesty.”
“I never ordered you to stop patrolling it!” the indignant king responded, his face darkening with rage. “I simply asked you to show some discretion. I dare you to say otherwise!”
Ossrok knew, despite his employer’s dishonesty, to hold his tongue. The original idea was to let the Sacred Island fall away into memory. To do this, he had to pull all of their boats away from her coast. A single, lonely frigate passed by each day to ensure that all was in order and to feed the monsters that guarded the accursed place. However, today the frigate’s crew had found traces of a secret foray onto the island, and now Ossrok was at the mercy of the king’s tirade.
“Most of them must be dead,” the mercenary announced, in a tone he hoped was reassuring. “With luck, only one escaped, which would explain why we didn’t find their boat. My men didn’t venture to the island’s center, of course, but I am willing to bet they would have found several corpses.”
“You don’t understand anything then! I don’t want these people to die,” the king responded.
Ossrok thought about this before responding. Indeed, he didn’t understand.
“Majesty,” he began slowly. “Excuse my audacity, but the rats of Farik are not tame animals. They are fierce enough that the Eastians use them on the field of battle, as you know. A simple bite can be fatal if the animal carries the sickness. And several of the creatures we released on the island were pregnant, I am sure of it. And now . . . now, you’re telling me you didn’t want them dead?”
“No, of course not,” the king whispered, truly dismayed. “The rats were only supposed to scare them.”
“The fate of these foreigners will serve as an example then,” the mercenary replied. “You can count on my men to tell this story to anyone who will listen.”
The king slowly nodded his head. His anger dissipated, and in its place bitterness, regret, and guilt pooled. He dismissed the commander with a gesture.
“Majesty,” Ossrok stubbornly continued. “Why are you so worried? It was just a few foreigners, foreigners who deliberately transgressed one of the most important taboos in the Land of Beauty. Don’t you think they deserved their fate?”
“The rats are nothing, Ossrok. Maybe it will be better for those who die from the sickness. If they saw Usul and survived, their agony has only just begun. I am crying because I couldn’t stop that. I am crying . . . with compassion.”
The commander finally left the king, shaking his head. The Guoris were a very strange people.
I remember the arenas on Lus’an. I had just turned eleven, already a responsible man. Smart enough, anyway, to understand that there was no real way for the bastard son of a slave to serve Zuïa.
One day, a messenger bro
ught Zuïa’s sentence to my mother, at the request of my presumed father. I did nothing to stop him.
I already had a deep faith in the goddess, and, as I have said, I was a responsible man. I asked the messenger to bring me to one of the temples. I had only one desire: to be like my father, to become a priest of Zuïa, to be among the elite.
At the time, I didn’t know that I would have to confront death. I hardly worried about the death of others, which was as natural to me then as it is now, but I also had no thought for my own, inevitable end, which hovered nearby as if behind a dark veil, or on a horizon too distant for me to see.
My stay in the novices’ temple was very short. During my time there, I worked with other men of my age, completing the various tasks needed on a farm. More than anything else, though, I learned about suspicion and intrigue. Eventually I learned to be cunning, and I formed several of my own alliances with the most powerful boys there. Some volunteered, others were forced. It was a great skill I developed in the temple, one that I still work to improve, and without which I would most likely not be alive today.
One day, all of the novices walked the road to Lus’an. We went by foot, under an oppressive sun, shouting Zuïa’s laws over and over again. This was the custom of the temple, and under the bright sun we yelled our creed so loudly that the messengers couldn’t hear the sound of their own horses.
The journey took four days. Six boys died from exhaustion and thirst. They were too weak to begin with. After we began, no amount of water or rest could have saved them. Had they completed the march, they would have died a few days later anyhow. It was better for them to die as they had.
Two others tried to run away, but we had already entered Lus’an, and no one can leave that land except the messengers. The two who tried to run lost their right to be novices and, as a result, became our slaves. I think the second one survived eleven days.
As for me, I made sure to use the journey to strengthen my alliances. Promises for the gullible ones, threats for the weak, extortion for those who gave me the opportunity. I encouraged rivalries, always taking the winner’s side. I flattered the receptive ones, bought the greedy, and swore fidelity to the fools. I played the game so well that when we arrived, of the sixty-seven novices remaining, twelve were fully loyal only to me, and they became my guard. Twenty-one others were indebted to me, and they became my people. Another twenty or so were scared of me, and they became my slaves. The dozen remaining represented the small dissenting faction of enemies, an inevitability. Even the most virtuous of men can’t help but have enemies.
None of us had heard about the arenas. At nightfall on the fourth day of the march, we reached Lus’an. In the mythical temple of the Great Work, they put us in separate cells. This was the first step in our training.
That the cells were locked was not strange to me; the temples were always built that way. But why separate us? I wondered. And why exempt us from our daily chores?
They suggested we sleep, so I dutifully applied myself to the task. Actually, it wasn’t hard; the long trip had exhausted me, the same as everyone else. The prospect of tomorrow’s trials loomed over me.
As I drifted to sleep, I could hear some novices talking with their neighbors through the bars of their cells. I absentmindedly listened, always on the lookout for some way to blackmail or control them. Eventually sleep overtook me, by the goddess’s good grace. I was going to need all my energy.
We were prisoners in our cells until midday. The messengers let us out only to bring us directly to the arenas. Never in my life had I seen so many priests in one place. We all gathered there, from lowly novices to the Supreme Judges, adorned in the goddess’s most coveted decorations, the kind you can only see in Lus’an. We all had congregated, paying homage to tradition.
I didn’t bother to study the gathered priests with more than a cursory look. I had already figured out what was going to happen. The sixty-seven novices were in a walled-in circle. A sea of red Züu covered the tiered benches of the arena. On the walls hung thirty hati, placed at regular intervals.
Zuïa was choosing her messengers.
I gathered my guard to my side and looked for a signal from the Judges. But it never came. Instead I took the initiative and sent my men toward a portion of the wall. We had grabbed thirteen hati before the others even moved.
Soon they followed my lead, and a scramble exploded across the arena. The novices fought each other, grabbing at daggers, murder in their eyes. A few among my own “people” approached us, searching for protection, but we gave them none. The fools had hesitated and earned no quarter from me. I chased them down, screaming in their faces, demanding that they return with a hati. Some turned and joined the fray. Others continued to plead for protection. With a solemn nod I had my guard slaughter those who failed me. Mayhem engulfed the arena.
When three of my men fell, I immediately recruited those who had slain them. The victors had been my slaves. Two I kept, but the third, an enemy from the beginning, I stabbed as soon as his back was turned.
Supreme in my power, I now had two hati in my hands. I gave one to the strongest unarmed novice, earning his gratitude and loyalty as the blade passed from hand to hand. He thanked me by cutting the throats of my two remaining enemies.
The fight was over. Twenty-six novices remained. Of them, only fifteen were unharmed. The hati were not poisoned, of course, but the victory was easy all the same.
Through the blood of others I earned the praise of the Supreme Judges. Zuïa recognized me as one of her best servants. Never had I been so happy. It was a joy that remained unmatched until I met my new master. He will spread the arenas to all the kingdoms in the world.
Emaz Drékin walked down a crudely carved stone staircase. Few people had ever walked this path. It was a privilege for those few who had earned the title Emaz. Drékin himself hadn’t walked it for nearly thirty years, not since Lana’s birth.
He concentrated on his feet and the stone beneath them. Though the stairs were wide, some were covered in a thick, slippery dust, others by rubble, others still by the bones of animals that had made this underground their home. In the dancing light of his torch, the descent felt even more dangerous. Emaz Drékin had only one desire: to be done with this.
When he finally reached the bottom of the stairs, he walked hastily across an immense, deserted room. It was empty and abandoned, like all the others. He took the first passageway on his right, then a second to the left, which ended at a locked door. The Emaz stuck his key in the hole and jiggled the lock.
For a moment he feared that the lock would be too rusted over, but with an effort, the key turned, and the door opened with a groan, which resonated noisily in the man-made cave.
Beyond the door lay another room, just as big and empty as the one before. Drékin ignored the barren shelves and walked straight toward one of the marble columns, behind which he squatted down. He pressed on a hidden mechanism and a trapdoor opened at his feet. Drékin carefully placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder below, hoping that the years hadn’t eaten away the wood. As he made his way down, the light from his torch swept away the shadowy darkness.
Nothing had changed. The hidden room was exactly as he had left it twenty-eight years earlier. He slowly finished his descent, taking care to not miss a step, or let his torch fall. The room was filled with notebooks, ancient texts, and parchment. Should the torch slip from his fingers, a fire would engulf him before he could make his escape.
Maybe fire was the solution . . . The thought turned over in his mind for a long moment.
He thought about the little space, hardly more than a closet, and imagined flames licking at the dry paper. For centuries the Maz had filled it with dangerous writings. Stacks of texts had been loosely tossed into this nook, as if it were the trash heap of the Temple’s archives. Drékin needed but one text, and he knew exactly where it was.
He found what he sought, a little volume placed at the top of the nearest pile. The priest g
ently swept away the dust on the cover. A title and a name emerged from the dark leather. To the Memory of Men. Maz A. d’Algonde.
Drékin sighed. He opened the book and scanned a few lines before slamming its secrets closed, horrified.
Lana was no longer in Mestèbe. Had she been killed? Had she fled? He had no idea. But he couldn’t live with this weight on his mind. He couldn’t risk anyone discovering this journal one day.
He had to act, even if it went against all the principles he had been teaching his whole life.
My master is powerful, and not only in his own right. He has a gift of surrounding himself with extraordinary men. Men like me.
His power is equal to a god’s, and he chooses his own priests. We are his allies, his captains, his cursed souls—as the slaves call us.
My master is skilled at so many things that he has no real need for us captains. Our army, far from struggling, grows by the day.
To call it an army is misleading, though; it’s more like a horde. They are barbarian warriors who speak in strange tongues; they are primitive and violent brutes, cruel to their enemies and their allies alike. They have no guiding principles, no code or civility. Though they are vile and repugnant creatures, their overwhelming power intoxicates me.
My master is a peerless strategist. His only fault is that he pays no mind to our losses. Though our troops seem inexhaustible, I am loath to give our adversaries even the slightest hint of victory by wastefully sacrificing even a few hundred men.
Sometimes my master condescends to hear my advice. When he does, we are rewarded with sensational victories. The conquered, so impressed and scared, choose to join our ranks as soldiers rather than as slaves. I am proud of these victories and the soldiers they bring. As a reward for joining, the conquered soldiers are permitted to bring with them their oldest sons. The others—women, old men, children, the sick and crippled—my master deals with according to his mood. Our Great Work feeds no useless mouths.
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