by Tom Lloyd
‘And our horses?’ he asked
The old woman gestured and more soldiers trotted up to collect the reins of each. ‘Only the Black Swords may ride within Vanach Settlement,’ she explained. ‘Your horses will be stabled at their barracks nearby.’
And if you want to escape, you’ll be slower than our soldiers, Isak finished in his mind, but his only response was a curt nod.
With a click of the tongue he brought Hulf to his side. He didn’t want the dog to follow, so he let a sliver of magic race over his skin as he crouched down to pull the dog close. He pushed his fingers deep into the hound’s fur and breathed in his warm scent.
‘Stay,’ he whispered into Hulf’s thick ruff of grey-black fur. ‘Wait in the woods for me.’
He felt the rune on his chest warm as the magic slithered out with his words, installing the command deep into Hulf’s animal mind. The dog whined in response, but Isak repeated his words and ran a palm over Hulf’s muzzle before nudging him away again. The dog sat as ordered, his ears down, his eyes on Isak as the white-eye took his seat in the litter. He knew Hulf would stay there until they were out of sight, but then he would run off as soon as any of the locals tried to go near him. He would be safer than the rest of them, most likely, away from danger and hidden by his tattoos.
Isak watched his comrades, far from surprised when Daken took the crow of Larat and Vesna the dragon of Karkarn – one unconsciously scratching at the Aspect tattoos on his chest as he did so, the other very deliberately touching the ruby tear on his face. To Isak’s surprise, Zhia headed straight for the Goddess of Fertility’s chair, running her fingers over the hare design almost as though testing her bathwater before she got in.
Doranei made for Nartis’ snake, while Shinir, appropriately in Isak’s mind, took Amavoq’s wolf and sat glaring at those taking note. The battle-mage Fei Ebarn, Leshi and Veil did not appear to care about which they chose, leaving Legana, Mihn and Tiniq all staring reluctantly at the remaining choices. When at last they too mounted their chairs, the horns sounded again and Isak’s bearers started off, leading the party through the great arch and onto a wide, deserted highway that led directly to the Grand Ziggurat ahead.
Isak looked up at the arch as they passed through. There were arrow-slit windows all the way up the huge stone arch, he realised, though it was so narrow he doubted there would be space within to draw a Farlan longbow.
Large, grand buildings, most several storeys high, lined the highway. Many had colonnaded open walks around the lower floors; the upper floors were supported by pillars, but they looked precarious to Isak as he passed. He noted again that the population was being kept well clear of the foreign visitors, warned to stay away by the constant blaring of the trumpets, perhaps. What Isak found notable about this elegant old city was the lack of life: those few people he had seen wore plain clothes, and only the Blessed were wearing any sort of adornment, while the houses and streets were almost dead, without the chaotic air of any city Isak had seen before. No clothes hung out to dry, no carts, or piles of wood or rubbish lay in the alleys between houses. There were market stalls of a sort around one block of building, but there didn’t look to be much for sale, and there was none of the accumulated everyday clutter a normal market would attract. These buildings might be offices or merchants’ stores, but it was remarkable how abandoned they looked.
‘So that’s the ziggurat,’ Daken commented from behind him. ‘Big bugger, all right.’
Isak looked ahead to the rising shape in the distance. Part of Vanach was built on the water of the lake itself, extending out from the shore towards the two islands that formed the heart of the city. None of Chief Steward Lesarl’s agents had ever returned from Vanach Settlement itself, but Prefect Darass had been more than happy to fill in some of the blanks for Isak.
More than half of the nearer island was covered by the Grand Ziggurat itself, on each of the stepped levels of which were shrines to many Gods, each one as large as the temple of any lesser God in Tirah.
The larger, fortified island behind housed the twelve High Temples, which rivalled any in the Land, according to the Overseer of Toristern.
And furthermore, there were shrines to a hundred more Gods and Aspects scattered throughout the city, each one obliging every passing citizen to speak a prayer there before moving on.
Isak looked away. The ziggurat was a nagging burr at the back of his mind, but the strange state of the city nagged at him even more; it was so unnatural it was almost otherworldly. Though he could see hundreds of the silent, watching citizens of Vanach, they could have been ghosts for all he could touch them, ask their names or understand their lives.
Is this the presence of Termin Mystt? Has it seeped into the city and turned everything awry, or is it just my own fears haunting me still?
‘What’s fucking wrong with all of them?’ Daken wondered aloud, voicing Isak’s own question.
Beyond the streets they caught a trace of the more normal sounds of a city, but the horns continued to blare, and everywhere within sight remained still and quiet. Squads of Black Swords stood at every street entrance; their presence alone was enough to instil a tense, sullen silence in the citizens.
‘They’re frightened,’ Zhia replied. ‘Most people are wary of change and these, well, they no doubt fear change as much as they do life staying the same.’
‘Sounds gutless to me,’ Daken said, turning to stare at the nearest party of armed Black Swords. They were all young, aside from a sergeant who’d likely not seen anyone more scarred than himself until Isak was carried past. ‘Livin’ like frightened rabbits their whole lives.’
‘You think they should choose death instead?’ Zhia asked contemptuously. ‘They have no leaders, no weapons, no safe means of contact with others who might feel the same.’
‘Don’t even look like they’re tryin’,’ Daken grumbled. ‘No kind o’ life if you ask me.’
‘It wouldn’t be your life,’ Shinir said. ‘White-eyes are given immediate advancement in the Black Swords – you’d be one of the oppressors.’
Daken laughed loudly. ‘Aye, sounds more likely. Tough shit fer the rest, then!’
As the sky darkened, Isak tasted magic on the air and turned quickly to see bright flaring lights appear in the centre of several units of Black Swords. They had encountered no mages throughout their journey, and Zhia had confirmed that none had been watching them from afar, but the exact status of mages there was unclear, despite the construction of the ziggurats and the arch they had just passed under.
‘That answers one question,’ Zhia commented, looking the same way.
Isak nodded. ‘I’d expected Vanach’s Commissar Brigade to be like the Knights of the Temples, to ban magery whenever they can.’ He didn’t have to open his senses to know the hissing torches now carried by each Black Swords squad had been made by mages – the energies leaked out of them like dirty trails of smoke, tasting bitter and ashy at the back of his throat.
‘The Devoted are a blind and stubborn lot, so proud of how the rest of the Land sees them. Here, where the Sanctum and councils rule absolutely, necessity perhaps trumps such lofty ideas. Those torches are not made to last. And look around us.’ Zhia gestured to the city at large, and Isak saw the spitting white lights at every street corner, and forming the perimeter of a circular patch of open ground ahead.
‘There must be hundreds of them – and the ziggurat is similarly lit; I can taste their sparks throughout the city. Somewhere there are dozens of mages hard at work. And considering we’ve not met one in any position of authority …’ She didn’t bother to finish her sentence.
‘Do you mean the Commissars’ll hold any magery against us? A bad example for their slaves?’ Isak asked.
‘I mean nothing as yet,’ she replied. ‘There would be too much speculation involved. But I doubt we’re in danger because of it. Vesna and Legana most obviously look like Raylin mercenaries to the untrained eye, yet they’ve not caused us a problem thus far.
You are already keeping a check on your powers. All I can suggest is we continue not to provide anyone with a reason to turn on us. Some contradictions of dogma can be ignored by absolute rulers, but it’s never sensible to push the matter.’
‘So let’s just be thankful we’re not being escorted by a cadre of slave battle-mages,’ Vesna added.
Isak didn’t reply as they came close enough to the open ground ahead to realise it wasn’t entirely empty. There was a large oval table set in the very middle, with six chairs around it. At a reverential distance, hands clasped and heads bowed, were five commissars of varying ages, dressed in the formal black coats that Prefect Darass and his deputy had worn. It was an incongruous sight.
‘Looks like it’s time for the fourth sign,’ Zhia said brightly. This was the one part of this trip she had been looking forward to, whatever the stakes: a challenge for her fearsome mind, and one no doubt designed especially for her.
‘What’s that again?’ Daken asked. ‘Mastery o’ tactics?’
‘Indeed, and given Xeliache is the most widely played game of strategy in the Land, I’m sure Vanach will have assembled some especially skilled players to test our Lord Sebe.’
Isak glanced around at her and saw she was smiling as much as he’d feared. He’d played the game only a handful of times, just enough to know breaking the board over his opponent’s head didn’t count as a win. He hadn’t the patience for games that took a lifetime to master, so he would have to allow a more skilled person to guide his hands here.
Even before the Last Battle and their curse, Vorizh’s little sister had been a master of the game, and Xeliache – Heartland, in the Farlan dialect – had led to her and Aryn Bwr, the last King of the Elves, becoming lovers. To fulfil this sign, Isak would have to allow the immortal vampire into his mind.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ he growled, and got up from his chair.
Two commissars shuffled forward to meet them at the edge of the circle of ground. The crowd spread around the paved circle were largely Black Swords – but not all of them. Isak realised this was as close to the common folk of Vanach as he was likely to get. There was a dull uniformity to their clothing that was echoed in their wary expressions, but he did notice the women were all careful to cover their throats with a scarf.
A vampire’s joke about religious humility? Isak couldn’t help but wonder.
Only the officers of the Black Swords and commissars wore any form of decoration; even devices of the Gods seemed to be restricted to the Blessed. The closest thing to jewellery appeared to be the coloured thread several women had used to tie their hair.
‘My Lord,’ said the leader of the approaching commissars in the Narkang dialect. He was a man of middle years with a prominent wart on his nose. He walked with a stick, half-dragging his left leg, like a soldier carrying an old injury. Isak noticed the younger commissar on his left was keeping his hands free, just in case the older man needed help.
‘I am Sepesian Farray, representative of the Silent Council, here to oversee fulfilment of the fourth sign. I welcome you to this arena of study.’
Isak glanced around. The litters carrying the Sanctum moved alongside him, obviously heading into the circle to witness events but to take no part themselves.
‘Silent Council eh? Must be powerful if the Sanctum defer to you.’
The man smiled politely. ‘My Lord is kind to joke.’
‘That was a joke, was it?’
Now he looked faintly stricken. ‘Forgive me, Lord; I did not know how much of our ways you knew. The Silent Council is solely devoted to this moment, the provision of an opponent for the fourth sign. This is our only field of responsibility.’
‘And not one that’s been so useful up to now,’ Isak murmured. ‘Let’s not delay your big moment, then. Where’s this opponent?’
Sepesian Farray bowed as low as he could and gestured expansively behind him. ‘He awaits you, my Lord. Please, take your seat at the table and he will approach.’
Isak tugged his patchwork cloak tighter around his body and stooped further, as if only now aware of the crowd watching him. Zhia followed him, catching Legana’s eye to ensure that she joined them too. The Lady’s Mortal-Aspect was as much a Xeliache player as Isak, but Zhia apparently thought her worth the third chair.
Isak’s opponent was a young man only a handful of summers older than Isak himself, with scrappy stubble and eyes only for the board. Sepesian Farray took the first of the spare seats, unsurprisingly, while a member of the Sanctum, a tall man with a widow’s peak and jutting chin wearing the white clasp of the Night Council, eventually joined them to take the last.
Isak realised the sense in bringing Legana to the table: not only was she stunningly beautiful, with arresting emerald eyes that glowed in the darkness, but her divine blood would be an added distraction to the religious fanatics.
He copied his opponent and stared down at the boards between them. Heartland was played on two hexagonal boards, with lines marking rows of triangles on each. The smaller was called the heavens and stood on a frame above the main board – that was where the Gods fought, each piece moving from one intersection to the next or descending to the main board. The majority of pieces were called soldiers, a handful of those were the Chosen. This was a plain set of old oak and polished stones rather than the ornate figurines the Farlan preferred, but it was elegant in its simplicity.
Instead of reaching for the pieces, Isak folded his hands in his lap and closed his eyes. This close to Zhia he could taste her presence in the air: the iron tang of blood, the sparkle of magic, the sour antipathy of someone cursed by the Gods. He could sense Legana on the other side of him too; it was a strange balance of Gods and monsters.
Between these two Gods-touched women he felt secure and alive, but all the more aware of the call of the grave. One was bearing the last spark of a dead Goddess, the other had been denied death again and again, and around them both he sensed a storm of torn threads – the loose strands of history’s tapestry, surging wildly.
And here I sit, ready to tie another thread off – to bind it to me and those already bound to me.
He felt the delicate, probing touch of spider-feet on his hands, picking their way with the greatest care over the twists of his scars, then skittered down to the tips of his fingers and bit with obsidian sharp teeth into the flesh of his wrists. Though they pushed into his body he could barely feel them, and he knew he would see nothing if he opened his eyes.
Zhia’s magic was running over his body; it carried the scent of a tomb, but it also washed away the stink of the Dark Place at the back of his mind and he found himself relaxing into the sensation. Just the idea of giving up control made the white-eye in him scream for blood, but Zhia’s touch was as deft as a lover’s, her mantle of centuries a salve to his wounded soul.
Before long his right hand was numb, as if absent from the rest of his body, while his left was a mere echo of presence.
At last Isak opened his eyes to find his hands moving with deft assurance, gathering up a dozen pieces to set them on the board in a starting position that seemed oddly unbalanced to Isak. The set of the starting pieces was up to the individual player; his opponent showed just a flicker of interest in his eyes before he returned to his own pieces.
Isak returned the man’s nod of respect when the last piece was set and said with a frown, ‘How do the little pieces move again?’
Only Sapesian Farray smiled while the spider feet dug a little deeper into Isak’s hand. That time he did feel them properly.
CHAPTER 17
Isak concentrated on the board and tried not to smirk. The young man opposite him slumped in his seat, hugging himself as he stared down in disbelief. Most likely he hadn’t been expecting that – though the sign was for Isak to show a mastery of tactics, to demonstrate understanding and insight.
Zhia had done just that with a slow, measured game for almost half an hour, and then upped the pace of every move. Attacking from
three directions, she had started to annihilate her opponent – moving her pieces as soon as he’d set his down, as though his moves were unimportant and carelessly discarding his losses.
And now he had stopped, unwilling to touch his pieces again in case it prompted the immediate loss of another. With a despairing look at an equally shocked Sapesian Farray, he wilted. Hand trembling, he reached out and made a gesture over the board to indicate he submitted. Isak smiled as he stood and felt sensation rush back into his hand.
‘My congratulations, Lord Sebe,’ Farray croaked as he struggled up. ‘That was – ah – remarkable!’
‘What can I say? It’s a gift,’ Isak said with a ghoulish grin. ‘Your man played a good game, though, he did you proud. I don’t often lose more than a handful of pieces.’
Farray’s eyes widened and it took him a moment before he remembered himself enough to translate the words for his protégée’s benefit. It seemed to lift the youth and he shakily pushed himself upright to take Isak’s offered hand.
‘Time to go, I think,’ Zhia said into his mind, ‘before you do a vic tory lap?’
Isak nodded and glanced at the member of the Sanctum overseeing the game, but he was too busy glowering at the defeated man to annoy further. He headed back to his litter instead, offering his companions a small, theatrical bow that made both Daken and Doranei briefly laugh and applaud like noble ladies at a summer fair.
‘The ziggurat,’ he announced as he took his seat again and gestured for his bearers to move off.
This time the Sanctum members were quick to get ahead, not even waiting for their colleague to retake his litter before the first of them moved off down the road. The last traces of light had faded from all but a sliver of the eastern sky and only now did Isak properly notice the frost in the air: the announcement of autumn that, in the lee of the Spiderweb Mountains, would turn swiftly to winter.
The procession came to a fork in the road as they neared the lakeshore. Ahead was a small grove of aspen, beneath which standing stones were set in two distinct circles. Under a gentle breeze that skipped off the lake, the trembling leaves seemed to whisper a warning to Isak. He found himself transfixed by the half hidden ancient stones they shaded; a flavour of reverence was hanging in the air that reminded him of the Ivy Rings in Llehden.