by Tom Lloyd
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 op
ponent 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.
Bearing right, they reached a large intersection, at the centre of which stood a statue of Alterr in stylised armour with her head piously bowed. Beyond that was a wide bridge that crossed to the ziggurat island. By now their route was lined solely by Black Swords soldiers, all standing silently to attention. Every fifth man was holding a torch to light their way. The bridge was almost thirty paces wide, with an ornate stone parapet down each side and arches composed of Aspects of Alterr touching spear-tips at either end. Compared to the Grand Ziggurat on the far side however, it was insignificant.
The ziggurat of Toristern Settlement was imposing for certain, standing perhaps eighty feet high. But the upper level of the fifth of Grand Ziggurat of Vanach Settlement’s enormous tiers was close to three hundred feet off the ground. The ziggurat’s lowest level was accessed by a long, stepped ramp that reached almost to the island shore. Smaller stairways led up to the other tiers.
On either side of the ramp were massive large stone statues – not religious figures this time, but a pair of wyverns with wings furled, looking up to the sky above. Isak faltered when he stepped between them, feeling an echo of pain in his gut as he remembered the sight of just such a creature on the battlefield outside Byora.
At the very top were three small structures that proved to be the entrance to the interior of the ziggurat, flanked by shrines to Alterr and Death. With night fully descended Isak looked out over Vanach, picked out by faint lights below. The breeze whipped at his cloak and threw back his hood to expose his frayed ear and torn throat to the Sanctum. He didn’t feel any urge to cover the marks of daemonic torment, and it was with a renewed sense of purpose that he turned to face the assembled members of the Sanctum.
A sparkle of life in the breeze and the heavy presence of magic in the stones beneath his feet filled Isak’s limbs with a strength he rarely felt outside battle. He touched two fingers to the Crystal Skull now bound to the bare skin of his stomach then approached Priesan Sorolis, who stood before a closed door no taller than Isak. ‘
Shall we proceed?’ he asked.
Sorolis agreed with a bow and raised her hands to the attending eye of her Goddess as though begging her to bear witness.
‘The last of the signs, the final Ziggurat Mystery: the one who comes to claim our secrets may only do so with the blessing of the Gods.’ Her voice was sincere, her conviction absolute. It was enough to stop Isak feeling scornful. The Sanctum were compelled by Vorizh’s magic, but they were not loyal servants of a heretic. Their secrets were hidden by layer upon layer of dogma and devotion – a devotion perverted by the unseen truth and a hunger for power, perhaps, but no weaker for it.
‘The mysteries tell us the one who comes shall walk with the Gods and command them,’ Sorolis intoned, her face a practised mask.
Isak nodded. No doubt they had assumed it would turn out differently – and no doubt Vorizh Vukotic had, too. Vorizh had realised that to be worthy of Death’s own weapon, the claimant would need to know the link bonding Crystal Skulls and God – particularly the connection between Death and the Skull of Ruling that Isak had exploited at the battle of Moorview. Without that understanding, they might wreak devastation, but they could not undo the curse of his family – and that, Zhia had assured him, was her brother’s goal, even more than revenge.
At his signal Vesna and Legana walked to his side. This wasn’t what the commissars would be expecting, he knew, but it was far less perilous. Whether or not it was the demonstration they wanted, to challenge the divine spirit within the War God’s most favoured would be foolish.
He turned to each in turn. Vesna did not hesitate to kneel to Isak, while Legana’s obvious reluctance to kneel to any man only reinforced the point to the Sanctum. This was no bargain: this was Isak commanding their obedience, and while he saw frustration and anger on the faces of many before him, he knew they could not deny the compulsion laid upon them.
There was a long moment of quiet before Priesan Sorolis bowed to him and stepped aside, motioning for the gates to be unbarred and held open. Mihn stepped forward alongside Vesna, but the youngest member of the Sanctum, a burly man with tight curly hair, immediately stepped in front of him.