“Today is a great day,” Chebree shouted. “Today, the reign of He Who Vanquishes begins!”
A thundering applause greeted this introduction, though it hardly revealed anything. The next part elicited even more applause:
“Today, Somber condescends to join us! In front of you, in this arena. Punishing the faithless who oppose his will.”
Zamerine heard the warriors cry out in ignorant joy. A god? A god would appear, invoked by a bunch of barbarians who hadn’t known his name the year before?
The strange couple, Saat and Chebree, sat, and the Zü signaled for the ceremony to continue, vacillating between impatience for the promised event and disbelief.
Rambunctious cheering greeted the two men who entered the arena next. Most of this applause was directed at Gor the Gentle, the warrior’s warlord, rather than for Dyree, Saat’s official executioner. While Gor strutted and waved to the crowd like a street performer, Dyree, who had no taste for fame, waited for the condemned.
Eight were pushed into the arena, hungry, harassed, and desperate. Gor insulted them in all the languages he knew, followed loudly by the violent crowd.
One of the victims decided to get it over with quickly and approached the apostles. The Wallatte giant charged him after a few steps. Gor threw him to the ground, kicked him while he was down, then picked him up and crushed his skull with a loud crack.
Gor thanked the cheering crowd with a bow. The remaining condemned huddled together, whispering. Five separated from the group and walked slowly toward the apostles. These ones wanted to at least try to survive.
The giant grabbed his two-handed axe and smiled. In sharp contrast, Dyree looked bored, holding only a simple dagger and leaving his hati sheathed. Against all expectations, he threw the dagger at the feet of the two slaves who hadn’t yet moved. To Dyree, they were either the smartest or the most cowardly. The Zü liked a worthy adversary.
The larger of the two condemned men grabbed the blade and approached, staying as far away as possible from Gor and his whirring axe. The other followed at his heels.
The two men tried in vain to surround Dyree, who effortlessly slipped out of their circle on one side or the other. Eventually the Zü stopped, crossed his arms, and let the unarmed slave circle around him. Finally the man jumped, trying to distract Dyree and hoping his friend would have enough time to stab him.
But Dyree was too fast. He turned and hit the man’s exposed throat with his open palm. The man collapsed, unable to breathe. With three rapid steps, the Zü escaped the armed man, whose attack wasn’t fast enough to take advantage of his partner’s death.
Gor handled his battle with as much skill. He could have disposed of his adversaries in a few leisurely movements with his immense axe, but the giant enjoyed playing with his prey, injuring, mutilating, and cutting off limbs before splitting heads with a precise swing.
The man with the dagger glared at Dyree nervously. The killer stood only three feet away, hands behind his back, smiling. They were both waiting for the other to make the first move.
Dyree showed his empty hands and signaled the warrior to approach. The terrified man didn’t want to move an inch, so the killer closed the remaining distance between them. Then the slave committed himself fully and jumped at his adversary. He didn’t even see the hati as it pierced his throat. With extraordinary speed, the killer had unsheathed and struck.
Gor had also finished his “battle,” and the crowd hailed their captains as they left the arena, satisfied with a job well done.
Emaz Chebree returned to the stand for another speech. It was incredible how quickly silence spread over the raucous crowd. The eastern tribes were quite superstitious. Was it possible that a god would really appear?
The last five men were pushed into the arena, joining the nine corpses left in place, along with a few limbs and a great deal of blood. Seeing what waited for them, the slaves fell to their knees and begged for mercy, in the name of He Who Vanquishes. They had no idea that they were being sacrificed to him.
The Emaz asked for a long silence, and a hush descended over the crowd. Then Chebree invoked the god’s name in a whisper, which grew louder and louder as she signaled for everyone to follow her lead. The entire arena, then the encampment, resonated with the sound—“Somber! Somber! SOMBER! SOMBER!” shouted by thousands of voices, the name of the god echoing off the mountains.
Even the victims prayed, hopeless and mad. They stopped when a form materialized in the middle of the arena, obscuring the murdered bodies and blood. Everyone stopped, even the shouting warriors, to better observe the horrible monster appearing out of the ether.
The last slaves died as quickly as the others, but it was Somber who killed them, with sophisticated, implacable cruelty.
He was He Who Vanquishes. Not He Who Takes Pity.
While the crowd watched, fascinated, as their god demonstrated his power, Zamerine glanced at the Young Diarch. And he knew. Seeing the face, usually so impassive, deformed by hate, he knew.
No one knew the name of Saat’s presumed son. It was simply the Young Diarch. Now, now he had one. His reign was beginning. Somber. Somber. SOMBER.
On the fifth day of the dékade of the Earth, the heirs stopped for the night at an inn near the Warrior’s Vale. The narrow band of earth between the Curtain Mountains and the Ocean of Mirrors was the best route to reach the Eastian Kingdoms, and, in truth, the only practical one. The other involved traveling close to Yérim’s coast, then through the Sea of Fire before crossing the desert called the Sea of Sand on foot.
Apart from the innkeeper and his wife, the establishment was empty; times of war weren’t favorable for commerce. The heirs were treated like kings for a time, until the Goranese learned their destination. After that, they were asked to pay for all the services they had been offered.
“You don’t seem too confident we’ll return,” Rey commented. “Yet your inn is perfect for expeditions east; you must have built it with that in mind.”
“Mister, I gave credit to one such traveler, who had gained my trust after being a client for many years. He visited Thallos, Sola, Greloes, and other mysterious places. He bartered for goods, learned their languages and customs, and brought back souvenirs. Then he headed back to the east, his mind full of foolish dreams of easy money and discovery. Mister, for six moons, no one has come back. It’s really a war over there, you know. In the past dékade, more soldiers have come to my door than I’ve seen my whole life.”
After his tirade, the innkeeper turned and walked away, showing no desire to discuss his demands for immediate payment. Since Rey had asked the question only out of curiosity, he didn’t bother to pursue the subject further.
Corenn worried that Grigán would change his mind after such a warning, and watched the warrior’s face for a reaction. But he stuck to their decision, for he had known the dangers well before they had gone down this path.
The heirs rested and ate in the inn’s small common room, decorated with diverse objects from the east. Hanging from the wall or leaning on the stairs were numerous weapons and pieces of armor, a few tapestries, diverse tools, hunting trophies, and other curiosities. Léti noticed a thistle and a spitter, both weapons she had seen in Junine, but that was only a small sample of the eastern warriors’ genius. Every blade, arrow tip, and pike tip was barbed and equipped with hooks that ripped flesh. The innkeeper showed them a Yalamine shield, which had sharp, lengthened edges, allowing its wielder to use it like a scythe.
Bowbaq demonstrated his progress with Ifio by having the monkey do a set of tricks, including bringing them bread and soup and even refilling their empty glasses. They all enjoyed the distraction, especially the monkey, who seemed to prefer Bowbaq’s training methods to Tonk’s.
Yan hadn’t used his erjak powers since the episode in the Holy City. Penetrating into a monkey’s mind was one thing, but in the heat of action, Yan had invaded and controlled a human spirit. Worse yet, an assassin’s, and the memory left a bitter
taste in his mouth. He wanted to speak to Bowbaq, but the giant feared Corenn’s rebuke. Hadn’t she told him to stop discussing the deep mind?
After they finished their meal, Lana took her leave and returned to her room. They all understood the Maz’s solitary focus. She had but one goal: to decrypt her ancestor’s journal, something she had failed to do thus far.
Grigán followed her lead, to everyone’s surprise. Rey and Yan exchanged a glance, fearful that his sickness was coming back. Annoyed by their worrying, the warrior assured them that he felt well, but the coming days would be difficult. He counseled that they all needed to get some sleep.
Bowbaq obeyed Grigán’s advice like an order and quickly went to bed, Ifio following at his heels. Corenn and Rey followed soon after, leaving Yan and Léti alone for the first time in what felt like years.
The young Kauliens smiled timidly, disturbed by their rediscovered intimacy. Neither of them wanted to ruin the moment. Neither of them knew how to say so.
Léti played absentmindedly with the medallion Yan had given her, and the young man distractedly grasped his three-queen charm, idly turning it over his fingers.
“Will you show me someday?” the young woman asked, looking at the coin.
Happy to please her, Yan placed the coin on the table and applied his Will. An instant later, the metallic disk rose slowly from the table and began to gradually turn. Léti was enthralled, and her face lit up. Seeing this, Yan made a goblet float as well, then a pair of knives, then a plate, then a half-full pitcher, and eventually all of the dishes were floating a foot above the table. Their reflections glistened in front of an awestruck Léti.
“It’s magnificent,” she whispered, sparks in her eyes.
As are you, Yan thought. Do it, tell her, now! Tell her. Ask for her Promise. Now.
“Horrors!” a voice cried behind him.
Yan’s concentration broke and all the dishes clashed on the wood, before smashing on the floor. The innkeeper was standing at the kitchen’s entrance, his eyes like saucers. Only Usul knew what he was thinking.
“I’m sorry, I woke too quickly,” Yan mumbled, blushing to his ears. “I will pay you.”
The man nodded, lips sealed, contemplating the destruction, and the young warrioress, who laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe.
Yan helped the man clean up, and Léti joined them. She didn’t lose her smile, the same knowing smile from when they were kids, but Yan felt like crying. It felt like only Usul’s darkest prophecies were coming true.
Someone knocked softly at Lana’s door, and she peeked out to find a smiling Rey with a bottle of green Junian wine.
“The teachings of Eurydis encourage hospitality,” he reminded her boldly. “May I enter?”
Lana moved out of the way, letting him into her room, half-amused and half-worried. She wasn’t as naïve as Rey thought. It was clear he was doing his best to charm her.
Then, looking at his noble bearing, his gracious movements, and his look that seemed to drink her in—and remembering his courage, his thoughtfulness, and his inalterable optimism—she realized it was already done. Rey made her happy. Consequently, she had to be much more careful.
“The Maz never drink, Reyan,” she warned him, looking at the bottle.
“No matter, it was only for me,” the actor retorted, laughing. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he said, seeing her blush. “How goes the decryption?”
“Not well, I’m afraid,” the Maz responded, delighted the subject had taken a turn. “Do you want to see my progress?”
“I would love that.”
Lana gathered her notes, conscious that Rey cared more about her presence than her work.
“You see,” she said, showing him the journal, “the place where the introduction ends. The rest is written with words that are all shorter than four letters, for the most part. One out of five has only one letter. And they make no sense, in any language from the Upper Kingdoms.”
“You summarized that very well,” the actor said, staring at Lana’s face.
“I had hoped there would be other legible sections,” she continued, “in the pages stuck together from the water. I did my best to save them . . . but that wasn’t enough; it was too late. Look for yourself.”
Regretfully, Rey turned his eyes to the old notebook. On the open page, the text was almost entirely erased and illegible. The remaining, faded ink had been turned into a series of smeared lines, melancholy and meaningless on the warped parchment.
Rey softly picked it up and cautiously leafed through a few pages. The same damage repeated itself throughout the central part of the journal. More than three-quarters of Maz Achem’s confession was lost for good. Only the first and the last pages, partially protected by the thick leather cover, had survived the disaster.
“We have to tell Corenn,” the actor asserted, suddenly very serious. “And Grigán.”
“Not yet, Rey,” Lana tempered. “Will it change our plans? No, not at all. I finally have a role in our drama, and it’s not so urgent that we need to tell the others immediately.”
“But . . . why not right now? If Grigán catches wind of this secret, you can be sure he’ll knock me on my ass for it!”
“We should protect their hope, Reyan. If only for Léti, who took such a great risk to bring this book back to us. I won’t tell them until I have decoded the rest,” she said.
The actor nodded, pensive. He wasn’t sure he agreed with the Maz. The idea of protecting hope seemed absurd to him.
“Hidden truths are polite lies,” he said, instead of contradicting her. “But why did you tell me?”
Lana blushed again and avoided his covetous gaze. She looked for an innocent response, but couldn’t find one, and left the question unanswered. For once, Rey had the tact not to insist, and he focused instead on the encrypted text.
“If Achem wrote an original version that he recopied and encoded in this journal, we may never find the key,” he said after considering the text. “But if he wrote directly on these pages . . .”
Lana listened to Rey and admired his thinking. Although she was the one who had been working with the text for three days, she had never thought to put herself in her ancestor’s shoes. She thought of herself as intelligent, and at least aware, but the Lorelien was clever.
“If he wrote directly,” he continued, “it’s useless to look for some complicated code of numbers and letters replaced or moved. He would have to have written almost naturally. How would I have done it . . .”
The Maz had never seen Rey look so serious. His sudden interest in Achem’s journal was enough for him to forget Lana. If he was speaking out loud, it was more to help him think than to explain his thinking. Lana saw a part of the actor she hadn’t known: although he was sometimes rebellious, thoughtless, rude, and cynical, he was also capable of respect and clearly enjoyed problems of the mind. She was convinced now that she could teach him to appreciate the virtues of Eurydis. And this idea, for very personal reasons, filled her with joy and hope.
Rey looked at one of the pages in silence. He was already certain that the letters didn’t correspond to syllables, at least if the text were composed in Ithare, as the introduction had been. It was useless to try mixing and matching the clusters of letters.
Examining more closely, he realized that the letters had been written one by one; the fine lines linking each proved that Achem had picked up his hand after each letter. The Maz was spelling out words. Since he had already rejected the idea that Achem had written in a code where letters replaced other letters, Rey hoped that each letter corresponded to exactly the words Achem wanted to write. Spelling the words across lines? Maybe across an entire page, or several?
Impassioned by this discovery, Rey tried to associate the first letter of the first line with the second, then the second with the first, but with no results. He tried again, alternating between the first and third lines, and his heart pounded as he read: n-e-v-e-r.
“I think I found it
,” he said feverishly. “A stroke of luck,” he added, considering Lana, who had struggled for two days with the mystery.
But the Maz had no unhealthy pride, which prevents one who fails from admiring others who succeed. She asked him for the solution and transcribed, on a new parchment, the first part of Achem’s story: Never had I expected . . .
“Thank you, Reyan,” she said, her words brimming with emotion. “Thank you for giving me hope.”
The actor found the moment ripe for a kiss, and Lana briefly enjoyed the embrace, before gently pushing her friend away.
“Forgive me, Rey,” she said, with a ravishing smile. “But, I have to know,” she said, pointing to the journal. “I need to know.”
Rey placed a finger to his lips and left the room with a wink.
Alone, and despite the torrent of emotions rushing through her, Lana grabbed the journal and began her transcription. She woke Corenn before the night was over.
Never had I expected to be absent from the Grand Temple for six dékades, when I accepted the mission to Lorelia. Never had I imagined that we would leave Ji, our meeting place, for a distant destination where our assembly would decide something no less important than the relationship between gods and men.
At first, I took Nol the Strange to be a hoax, a man cherishing his hoarded secrets and the mysterious play he was directing. On the Day of the Owl in the year 771, he had us wait until nightfall to hear any explanation. If I hadn’t been concerned about a lost opportunity for the Ithare people, I would have immediately taken the ship for Maz Nen, leaving Nol to his fantasies. Later, I learned that many of the emissaries had felt the same way.
Many nations were present that day. I met Prince Vanamel Uborre and his counselor, Saat the Treasurer, whom I knew already from when I was an ambassador to the Grand Empire. There were many other royal characters, most of whom would become my dearest friends. King Arkane of Junine, Reyan Kercyan, the honored Mother Tiramis and her guard, Yon, son of Kaul’s Ancestress. There was also chief Ssa-Vez from far-away Jezeba, the general Rafa Derkel of Griteh, and finally the wise Arque, Moboq.
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