War is coming. I feel it in my bones.
Johnathan walked south of the market square, and took the main road west. Horse and carriages rolled along the streets, camped full of men in quilted doublets and top hats; the women were in long flowing dresses, with faces flushed in red or pink. The lanterns atop ornate posts were guttered near to half, casting shadows on the cobbled walkways.
Cheer and merriment from inside pubs and taverns spilled out to the streets. He passed a familiar establishment—the Kneeling Knight; it was near full, and the patrons shouted uproariously at the end of a rendition of the Knight Who Never Keels. A tall, short haired woman bowed, lute in her left hand. Pouches of coin sailed through the air amidst applause.
I will have to stop by some night. I should like to hear it from start to finish from a woman’s lips.
He trudged further west. The streets thinned, and tall stone homes cramped together—though few with candles still burning. The street was near dead, save for some scampering couples who looked about briefly, then scurried off. In the distance was a walled gate, and a knight snickered, peering around the corner.
Johnathan sighed, and inaudibly cursed the young. “Save the ogling for when you are off duty, ser.”
The knight’s face reddened. “Lord Protector, ser. Forgive me. It has been a quiet night.”
“If it were not, ser, I may espy some bandit in the garrison.”
The knight was silent.
“See that I have no desire to do this again.”
The knight put a mailed fist to his heart and unlatched the gate.
Nestled beside the western wall was a wide, but short three floor stone building. Cobbled stone paths lead away to the practice yard and armory to the north, and another south to a squat chapel for morning prayer.
There is much work to do before bed. Johnathan walked to the main building, but he could not help but hear the clamour of steel in the late hour. We will have need of the dedicated in the times ahead. A dutiful knight opened the simple, plain door for him.
The ground floor housed the common barracks for the squires and men-at-arms who had caught the eye of the knight captains. Johnathan walked to the south, towards the stairs to the upper levels, that, for reasons he did not quite understand, came just after the kitchens and mess halls.
Smoke, roast venison, and near drunken tales filled the air as he walked past.
“Lord Protector! Ser!” a thickly bearded, barrel chested knight bellowed from the near bench. “Come and join us while the stars wane! I have had my fill of this lot.” Jeers met the man, but surprisingly some cheers, and Johnathan could not help but chuckle. “They know the truth of it. Ah but Lord Protector, you could share some tales. Got some squires here too. They would hear your tales of valor.”
Johnathan leaned against the entryway and looked at the table. There were drunken knights and squires; some he knew by name, while others were unknown and likely not with the order long. The squires looked to him with respect and reverence, and the knights beckoned, hammering their tankards against the table. He wanted to join them, but he had much to do. “Be merry, my friends. Affairs will not wait.”
“One tale!” Ser Arthur Finel plead. He was a lanky and lithe knight who served the order for two years. “The lads were battered on this day. Give them a salve for their weary bones.”
“One tale, but no ale,” Johnathan grudgingly admitted, sitting down. Ser Arthur bandied him lately for a night at the tables. The man was stalwart and true, and Johnathan could see no cause to avoid some merriment. “Been sharing war stories with the squires? Going to ruin them, Ser Arthur.”
“A man must know what they are up against before he can be brave. Is that not what you told us upon knighthood?”
Johnathan smiled. At least some do recall the words I say. “Yes, I do recall spouting that nonsense.” The table laughed. “We tend to be fear addled despite that.”
“I am not afraid, not of the Sentinels of Umbrage, the Crimson Swords, nor the Royal Protectors,” one of the squires protested. He seemed like a diminutive lad who would not be bound for steel or shield by the look of him. “Should one of them walk through our gates, I would stand up to him, and toss the lout out!”
“What, you going to use your mug, Treyven? Against his balls?”
“There is more than one way to best a knight.”
A pity for his size. The lad has the heart of a warrior. If only the order would be filled with men like Treyven. Well, bigger men like Treyven. “Young Treyven has the right of it,” Johnathan said. “You asked for a tale, I shall give it, then you lot will drink to the memories of our fallen brothers and sisters, and once again for me while I tend to affairs.” Cheers erupted, and they looked to him; the squire Treyven seemed particularly intent. “I will talk of a time before a lot of you. Even some of the anointed knights,” and he looked to the squires as if to say, ‘even they know little of this.’ “It was ten years back, when the islands were smuggler havens, and no ships defended their shores. When it was us against the imperium, whence the Black Storm ruled and commanded.
“Imperator Argath Diomedes made no secret that he wanted our fertile land. You see, lads, Isilia is a wasteland, and very little grows upon it. Yes, the mountains yield minerals and ore that they trade and craft. Much of the ore Dalian swordsmiths use to forge our weapons come from those mountains. A fact that the imperator did not forget, not when he thought more was owed to him than was given.
“We battled at sea when the Black Storm lead his hordes. I was part of a boarding party when we thought we spied the imperator’s own dromond. It was not his, though the Black Wrath commanded, and I, fool that I was, sought to take his head myself.
“Ah that man was a giant among men, not past his twentieth season. He dwarfed even me, and wielded the longest two-handed sword you ever did see—‘twas a weapon for a giant. When we clashed steel, I could only push up against him. You lads who practice your skill in the yard know well where that leads you.”
“How did you fell the monster, Lord Protector?” Treyven asked with eyes wide. Some of the other knights snickered. Johnathan thought anointed knights should have known better, even in their cups.
“The Black Wrath is a large man, Treyven, but he can be felled. I ran circles around him, cut at his legs and tired him out. I no longer met his steel, but let him flail about. If I had the endurance, I suspect he would have cut his own ship to pieces.” The table laughed. “In the end, I did not fell him, Treyven: our own archers did. They cut him deep where his plate joined, and at the back of his leg. Though I did accept his surrender at sword point.”
“And the bastard still lives,” Ser Arthur piped in. “Or so they say.”
“Yes, but he took a long time recovering,” Johnathan answered before looking back at Treyven. “Even the humblest of knights can take down a giant.”
The knights raised their mugs. The squires looked so proud and content. Johnathan slipped away, ascending the stairs in the adjoining hall.
He was glad for the distraction, if but momentarily. He knew that he should afford them more time, but the affairs of state were taxing. Ser Elin once said that no man, regardless of birth or rank, would give up his life for a commander unbeknownst to them.
Now that you are not here, old friend, they must die for me. If only you knew how prophetic your words were.
Upon the upper floors the raucous din of the mess hall was muffled. He walked down the narrow hall, his own quarters at the far end, and espied a familiar knight. “Lady Melissa?” A renowned knight shackled with guard duties was a surprise, never mind one as proficient as she was. “Expected to see anyone else, after what you swore to me weeks past. The lads get the best of you again?”
“I would rather not speak of it, should honour allow, Lord Protector.”
Cards or drinking games must have done her in again. “Of course. This will be the last of the quiet nights, I fear. If I may, there is much I must decide before I can rest.”<
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“A moment, Lord Protector.” The knight barred the way. Though bold, he knew it was not mere impudence. “You have a guest inside. He has not waited long, nor was it my decision to permit him. Lord Gareth has a signed decree from the Voice. I inspected it myself. It is her seal, yet the hour is late. Do you wish to be joined?”
I do not like this. Lutessa did not make mention of the lord steward seeking words in all the hours of the early night. It is one scheme layered upon the other, most like. “See to your post. I will attend him.”
Johnathan’s chamber was aglow. His suits of armor and mounted weapons were left untouched, and the stone floor was swept clean. The tall frame of Lord Gareth Polin hunched over Johnathan’s own writing desk, away in the far corner of the chamber. The lord steward leafed through the worn pages of a play Johnathan had been reading. It was a rather dull tragedy of young love that the first scholar thought would be good for his soul. I should not humour her so. Anastasia was difficult to say no to, much unlike Lord Gareth who overstepped his bounds.
“Not a guest in many homes, are you, Lord Gareth?”
The presumptuous steward jumped, pressing a free hand upon his chest. He still wore the stylized silver and white tunic and pantaloons of his office, and his curly brown hair was dishevelled, reaching past his shoulders. A barber would do the man some good.
“Oh, this, you mean?” Lord Gareth asked, pointing whimsically to the play, as if it was some trivial ornament. “I am afraid you have the wrong impression, Lord Protector.”
Johnathan harrumphed. “I have never known you to lack manners, Lord Gareth. I expected better.”
“Oft we must temper our expectations.”
Johnathan was in no mood for games. “What affairs brings you here, Lord Steward? I have spent the night in discussion with the Voice. She made no mention of the missive you revealed to Lady Melissa.”
“That is very strange. It was a matter we discussed just this afternoon.”
“Out with it, or I shall have you thrown out. There is much that I have to do, and little of it has to do with spineless whelps.”
“It is not so simple,” Lord Gareth replied timidly. “I am not the one who must speak with you.”
A warm wind suffused Johnathan suddenly; it was blowing and blistering from every direction. He glared at Lord Gareth, and put a gauntleted hand on his blade and withdrew it, but then swiveled his head at the sound of a thunderous crash, and he saw a swirl of sand near the door that faded and revealed the height and girth of a man, garbed in a long, draping brown robe trimmed in red. Three others appeared along the wall from their own storms.
“What sorcery is this?” Johnathan shouted amidst the searing heat. “Stay this!”
He turned back towards the lord steward, and saw there was another swirl of sand, but the warm wind was stronger and fiercer. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light, and whence it faded, the cool, dank air returned, and a man taller than the rest stood beside Lord Gareth. The man’s robe was akin to the others, but for the design of twin dragons upon the front; his hair was cropped short—a dull, dirty brown—and his face was warm and kind with piercing brown eyes.
“Do not be startled, Lord Protector,” the stranger declared. “We are here to offer aid. May I sit?”
The stranger—whoever he was—spoke with the same arrogant condescension that Johnathan despised in the stewards. He thought it may have been some plot, but their garb was not just unlike the stewards, and utterly foreign to the Eastern Lands.
Though he thought it at least prudent to hear words, whilst he tried to understand who—and what—they were. He sheathed his sword, and pointed to the table in the centre of the room, and sat opposite the stranger.
“What is the meaning of this, Lord Gareth?” Johnathan asked. “What have you brought into the heart of your city?”
“My lord will see to your understanding, ser.”
“You know I care not for that title,” the stranger remarked. “None of us are lords. We serve.”
“It is what they understand,” Lord Gareth replied. “Hierarchy is important to them.”
“Yes, of course. We must make them comfortable.”
The words did not assuage any of Johnathan’s suspicions: it encouraged fears. Solemnly, he recalled a passage from the Book of Faith: There they stood in flowing robes and darkened hands, sorcerers who soured milk and plagued villages. They fit the mould of sorcerers. He sat there, weighing them.
Do you know aught of this, Lutessa? Are they here upon your whims, to force an answer from me that you could pry yourself?
“Who are you? All of you?” Johnathan asked. “Start there. It is clear to me that you desire some favour from me. I see no other course to come before an old man at this late hour.”
“We,” the stranger opened his arms, “are the Order. We dwell in the deserts east of Isilia, past their black mountains.”
“Nonsense,” Johnathan protested, near shouting. “None dwell in the Desert of Death. Only fools do not acknowledge the danger to the east. Here, in Dalia, we know it to be true. Centuries ago, Imperator Cimmerii sought our fertile lands, knowing that the desert was impassable. I am old, but I am no fool.”
“I do not lie to you, Lord Protector.”
I doubt that overmuch.
“My name Jophiel,” the stranger simply began. “These are my servitors. We have sat from afar, watching. Secrecy has been our prerogative, but the realm will no longer allow it.”
“Informers, then? Bloody awful little birds if you would sit here and admit it.”
“No. We have always cared little about your politics, save when it may lead to calamity. As it does now.”
“If you, if you think to assuage my fears with this tripe, you know less about us than you dare admit.”
“I did tell you, High Servitor,” Lord Gareth spoke solemnly. “That names would not have sufficed. He needs to know of our purpose.”
“Yes. That is unavoidable,” the high servitor admitted, staring blankly. “We servitors, we serve. That is our guiding principle, handed down to us from the Father of All. We exist to serve you, to guide you. Yet, as of late, our influence has waned, and no longer may we act so freely.”
Johnathan thought that if their magicks were not laced with lies, they may not be the sorcerers described in legends. Yet they had not endeared themselves to him, either. “I care not for you, not a whit. Leave us and take the traitor with you. Else I will spill his blood and whomsoever is left behind.”
“We cannot do that,” High Servitor Jophiel said. “The realm must now stand against the Faceless Shadow, and we would not have you stand alone.”
The Faceless Shadow. It was a name Johnathan heard too often. Some of the whisperers from Isil called the cloaked man by that name. It disturbed him to hear it from this stranger.
“We will see to our own affairs,” he protested. “Whoever this man is, we will contend with him in our own way. I will have none of your aid.”
“The calamity that is to come has its roots in the imperium, but your Voice has as much to do with it as the Faceless Shadow. Your inaction would yield the deaths of your people. You abandoned your children once, will you do so again?”
“Do not speak of them to me High Servitor Jophiel! What would you know of them? What do you know of what I had to do?”
“Guilt is not a trait borne entirely from the Dalian line.”
Johnathan gripped the table hard. “Get out.”
The high servitor did not stir, but only reached into his robes and withdrew a shining, translucent silver crystal. Johnathan could not help but stare into its heart, as if tendrils reached out and compelled him to do naught but submit.
“Avert your eyes, Lord Protector,” Lord Gareth proclaimed.
Johnathan could not help but feel a calming presence; a soothing that fluttered away whence his eyes met Jophiel’s.
“Have you seen its like before?” the high servitor asked.
Johnathan
shook his head.
“Then your Voice guards her secrets well. What the Faceless Shadow ultimately desires are the kin of this. Animus Stones. Ancient crystalline stones of immense knowledge and power. In the hands of that man—a means of terrible destruction.”
“What I have learned, Lord Protector,” Lord Gareth said. “Is that beneath the city of Dale are ruins that existed long before our ancestors departed Trecht. How the Voice uncovered the entrance, I know not, but she found an Animus Stone from deep within those vaults, and sent it north.”
“To where?”
“Not where, but whom. Sebastien Tiron. The healer of Serenity.”
Johnathan did not believe a word of it. Sebastien would not get caught up in affairs of, well, Johnathan did not rightly know who these men were, nor did he countenance they would offer up a satisfying explanation.
“Heresy, madness, and venom,” he recoiled. “Whatever that rock is, I know naught, but I know false words when I hear them. I believe none of it.”
“You will in two days’ time,” High Servitor Jophiel declared. “I hope you will believe it now, and save us time that we need.”
“I do not.”
“Knight-Commander Ser Jacob Merlen was near the village not five days past. He dispatched a rider to Dale. The man will arrive before dusk two days from now. He will reveal to you that Serenity is no more, its villagers’ dead, all but one. Ser Elin Durand—or is he no longer knighted, now? I know you are acquainted.”
He is a knight, whatever the Voice commands…
Johnathan knew that the Faith would pin Serenity on the boy when they learned of it.
If the imperium is responsible for the troubles in the north, it is a play that would bear fruit. While their forces advance, we fight amongst ourselves, much as we have these last few years.
Johnathan dismissed the thought. Even if he could convince the Voice that blood was spilled, he was not prepared to act on the word of these men.
Darkness Rising (Ancient Vestiges Book 1) Page 4