Highlords of Phaer (Empire of Masks Book 1)

by Brock Deskins

  “I don’t either, but that’s how it is. We can’t save them, even if we turn ourselves over, but we can avenge them.”

  “Damn right.”

  Aiden nodded. “Damn right.”

  Quinlan stood upon the platform, his hands on his hips, gazing out over the crowd. “No one? No one wishes to confess their crimes to save the lives of their compatriots?” He let out an exaggerated sigh. “I suppose I expected that kind of cowardice from criminals who strike at night and need three grown men to assault a young man.”

  He motioned to the masked executioner standing next to a lever. The hangman gripped the rod and heaved it toward him. The bolt holding the trapdoors shut retracted. The floor opened with a clunk loud enough to be heard over the crowd’s gasp. Brandon and Clara vanished into the box’s interior almost too fast for the eye to track. The ropes snapped taut an instant later and swayed from side to side.

  Quinlan turned back toward the crowd. “I know the cowardly thugs who assaulted their betters are watching. Let this serve as a lesson to them and those who would break the law.”

  Aiden could swear that Quinlan looked straight into his eyes, but perhaps it was his imagination brought on by his sense of guilt.

  He took Camron by the arm and walked him away from the spectacle. “Let’s go.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “I’ll show you. I’ve been preparing for this moment for a while, and Quinlan just gave me all the justification I need to do it.”

  Aiden led Camron back to his workshop. They went into a back room where Aiden locked the door behind them before revealing the object hidden beneath a tarp.

  “What is it?” Camron asked.

  “It’s an arbalest, but not just any arbalest. I call it a manuballista. I’ve mounted it to a bipod that will bolt onto the roof to prevent it from jumping when I loose a bolt. There are tension springs attached to the pivot point to keep my aim true. I’ve been practicing, and I can hit a man-sized target from almost two hundred yards. The windlass is a bastard to crank, almost seventy-five hundred pounds of force, so I’ll only get one shot.”

  Camron ran a hand over the smooth wood and steel bow. “Who are you going to shoot?”

  Aiden’s face turned to a look of stone. “Highlord Nahuza is coming the day after tomorrow, and I plan to kill the bitch. They take two of ours, I’m going to take one of theirs, one that will make them suffer like we do.”

  “You’ll start a war.”

  “Maybe it’s time we do.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Amaia’s airship floated over Noirbedoj, the rolling stone plains beneath her like a grey sea as she and Dante flew to Czernstred. Czernstred was not just Noirbedoj’s capital, it was the only true city in the land, and where nearly every Necrophage called home since their kind had been cast out of Phaer.

  Of course, now it was populated almost entirely by the decedents of the original exiles—almost. While Noirbedoj was a barren land, it was far from unpopulated. A primitive and savage people who called themselves the Ulec lived in hundreds of tribes scattered across the continent. While brutish, it did not take long for the Necrophages to convince the simple tribal creatures that they were gods and domesticated the Ulec into a slave class whose souls they harvested to extend their lives even beyond that of the sorcerers.

  Some, like the harbinger, possessed such powerful necromantic arts that he managed to defy death for centuries. Amaia herself was turning a hundred and was still considered a young woman, but her age, as well as most people’s, paled in comparison to the harbinger’s. Pherick Ochoa was over a thousand years old and one of only a handful of Necrophages who not only survived the purge but was still alive to tell of it. Just a boy when he and his family fled Phaer a millennium ago, he was venerable even by their standards, and there were a few amongst the council who thought it past time he stepped down. Amaia would need their support if Pherick refused to listen to her.

  Amaia lived on a small estate near the Tempest Sea. Her duty was to study the eternal storm and report anomalies. Not only was she going to disclose her findings, she was going to recommend that the council order the preparation for incursion so that they might reclaim what was stolen from them.

  She knew she had a hard fight ahead of her. Both of her parents were on the council, and she was familiar with the harbinger and his lack of enthusiasm for change. He would certainly oppose her and her audacious plans, but if she could sway enough members of the council, then he would have to do something, even it was to send an expeditionary force. All it would take was for a few airships to successfully navigate through the tempest and report back to ignite a fervor within the city demanding that they commence a full-scale invasion.

  Amaia had devoted her life to studying the tempest in the hopes of returning to Eidolan as conquerors and reclaiming Phaer. Her research was inarguable. The tempest was waning, and her detailed charts and graphs proved it. She had flown her airship to the very edge of the eternal storm and charted its slow decay over the years in exacting detail. She would convince the harbinger and the council that now was the time to act—no matter the cost.

  ***

  Czernstred lay sprawled out below Amaia’s airship. The regular shapes and deliberate pattern was one of the few things that set the squat, square homes and buildings apart from the natural rock formations of the surrounding lands. The Ulec were strong and trainable, but they lacked creative thinking and possessed limited engineering skills, and the plain, uninspiring architecture showed it.

  Few structures stood over three stories. The one significant exception was the Acropolis of the Dark Harvest. The acropolis was the Necrophages’ center of power and where the prominent citizens absorbed the souls of the sub-human chattel to prolong their already unnatural lives. Carved into the cliff face in the guise of a specter of death, the acropolis loomed a hundred feet over the city.

  Four of Amaia’s Ulec slaves unloaded her rickshaw from the airship, gripped the crossbars sprouting two to a side from the central shaft, and waited. There were plenty of rickshaws providing transport around the city, but Amaia preferred to bring her own. One of the few places more dangerous than the wildlands outside of Czernstred were the “civilized” streets inside Czernstred.

  Like every society, the Necrophages had their castes, and one of the surest ways to raise one’s status and power was by killing and absorbing the soul of another, preferably of someone more powerful than themselves.

  At least, it once was. Pherick had made it a crime for Necrophages to prey upon each other. Perhaps it was important at the time given the devastation the purge had caused in their population, but it also made them weak, and Amaia detested weakness. She honed her skills as her grandparents had taught her—as far as she was able under the law.

  However, this was a society that thrived upon breaking laws, particularly laws of nature. Ritual soul sourcing of fellow Necrophages still occurred within the darkest shadows, a murder most foul committed by those who refused to accept limitations to their power. That made every practitioner of necromancy a target, and Amaia was no exception. Her slaves were well-armed and would fight to the death.

  She climbed aboard the rickshaw with Dante at her side and ordered her slaves to take her to her parents’ home. Four more Ulec followed behind the conveyance as it whisked the two Necrophages through the streets at a swift pace. Ulec were strong and tireless. Their muscles bulged beneath their grey skin as they effortlessly pulled the rickshaw and its two passengers. Ulec preferred to either shave their sloping-browed heads or wear their spiny hair in a wide strip that sprouted all the way down to the middle of their shoulder blades.

  Amaia’s parents’ home was larger than most in the city but nowhere near as palatial as the mansions in Phaer that she had read about in the few books that survived from that era. It lay near the base of the acropolis, as all councilmembers’ homes did, its relatively small plot surrounded by a wall.

  Recognizing the visitors, U
lec guards swung open the iron gates at their approach to allow the rickshaw into the courtyard. Patricide was not uncommon, and the house guards surrounded them at a polite distance. Amaia and Dante stepped from the rickshaw and walked to the house. Amaia did not need to order her slaves to stand in place. They knew better than to move. To do otherwise suggested ill intent and would provoke a brutal battle.

  Moana and Osane, Amaia’s mother and father, greeted their daughter in the entrance hall with cold detachment, typical of their kind. Love was an unknown, or at least unappealing, emotion. Necrophage couplings were established for the purpose of continuing the bloodlines and strengthening social and political positions. Whatever emotional attachments a couple might have they kept deeply suppressed.

  “Amaia, we were not expecting you,” Osane said when his daughter appeared.

  “Father, Mother, forgive my unannounced arrival, but something urgent requires my presence in the city.”

  “Has it to do with your studies?” Moana asked.

  “It does. There have been some startling changes in the tempest that I think the harbinger and council should hear about.”

  Amaia’s father nodded. “You want us to ask the council for a special convening.”

  “I do. It is imperative that I share my findings immediately.”

  “Come in and show us what you have discovered.”

  Amaia and Dante, the latter’s arms burdened with Amaia’s notes and charts, followed the senior Necrophages into the sitting room. Amaia took several papers from her consort and laid them out on the table. Her mother and father leaned over and read the notes. Amaia saw by her parents’ subtly shifting facial features that she had certainly piqued their interest.

  “All of this information is accurate?” Moana asked. “You have not exaggerated or filled in missing data with speculation or theories?”

  Amaia suppressed her irritation at the hint that she had presented anything other than unadulterated facts. “Everything I recorded is verified through firsthand observation and testing. For the past three years, I have taken my airship into the Tempest once every week, and each time I was able to fly farther across the sea by a handful of miles. Not only that, but the breaks in the storm I have observed are steadily increasing, not just in number but in duration. It is my estimation that in the next four to six months the storm will lessen enough for an invasion force to cross the sea with no more than twenty percent losses.”

  “Twenty percent is a great many lives, not to mention materials,” Osane said.

  “But acceptable,” Amaia countered.

  Moana said, “If the harbinger accepts your data and agrees to launch an invasion, he is going to want to wait. He is not as eager as others and will see any losses to the storm as unacceptable, especially when it comes to airships. I am sure you want us to argue against delaying. Tell us why we should support an earlier invasion.”

  “Because we do not know if the storm will continue to wane. I think the emperor is growing weak with age and that is why the barrier is failing. It is only a matter of time before the sorcerers find another to take his place or devise a new method of strengthening it once again. It is a window of opportunity, and we would be fools to dally until it slams shut once more in our faces.”

  “Or on our necks the moment we stick our heads through.”

  “I do not think that is likely. The sorcerers have let us be for centuries. I doubt they give us any consideration whatsoever.”

  Osane nodded. “I agree, and I think your mother does as well. We will petition the council for an emergency gathering so that you may present your findings and recommendations to them and the harbinger.”

  “And you will support me?”

  Her parents exchanged looks and Moana said, “We will. You may stay with us while you are in the city.”

  “Thank you. May I instruct my slaves to bring in our things?”

  Moana inclined her head. “You may.”

  Amaia went to her room while Dante left to direct her slaves. Despite her parents being council members and one of the city’s most powerful families, the estate was not particularly large, at least not compared to what she had heard of the mansions in Phaer. Even the harbinger’s home outside of the acropolis was only slightly more spacious. Two rooms comprised her chambers: a bedroom and a sitting room. Unlike the austere exterior, white marble flecked with red veins sheathed the interior walls. White and black for the floors.

  Dante appeared minutes later leading several slaves bearing their trunks. He ordered them to unpack their clothes and put them in the dressers and wardrobes.

  Amaia patted the plush sofa upon which she reclined. “Dante, come sit with me. We have much to discuss.”

  Her consort took a seat. “I suppose there is no time to waste.”

  “Absolutely none.” Amaia fixed him with a steely gaze. “Dante, I need to know that I have your absolute support in this no matter what happens.”

  “You know you do.”

  “This must happen, and I will do whatever it takes to ensure that it does.”

  Dante took her hand. “I will walk at your side even if our path leads us to the Tormented Plane.”

  “Good, because it very well might. I need you to get a feel for where the city stands on reclaiming our homeland. We must know for sure that enough of our people still thirst for revenge or this is all a waste of time no matter the outcome with the council.”

  Dante smiled. “Spend my days and nights at taverns drinking and socializing? You ask a great deal, but I shall endure.”

  “Take this seriously. Try to get in contact with those close to the councilmembers to get a feel for their position on the subject. It would be a great help to know that I will not have to battle the harbinger and the entire council.”

  Dante screwed up his face. “Surely you do not intend that literally.”

  “As I said, I will do whatever it takes. Do I still have your total support?”

  Dante lifted her porcelain hand to his lips and kissed it. “To death and beyond.”

  Amaia pulled her hand away and pushed Dante off the sofa with her foot. “Go, you foolish man. Time is not on our side.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Tens of thousands of eyes stared at the eastern horizon, watching Highlord Nahuza’s airship glide toward the city. It was a sleek vessel, dwarfed by the military ships that had taken up formation around it when it neared the city. The vanguard, led by Commander Driscoll Victore, was short one ship thanks to the ill-considered wager with his brother Auberon.

  Auberon stood apart from the rest of his family and senior city officials, ready to set off his pyrotechnic display from atop a scaffold erected in the plaza leading up to the palace. He too looked out across the city at the approaching airships and smiled, imagining his brother’s ire at escorting the highlord’s yacht without his flagship. He only wished now that he had had the foresight to set off his powder from aboard his new ship while it hovered over the palace.

  Of all the eyes watching the airship’s arrival, none stared more intently than those of Aiden Underhill. He was a predator waiting for his prey to stroll unawares into his trap. He knew there was a good chance that he would not live to enjoy his victory for long, but those last few days, or maybe even hours, would be the most joyous of his life.

  The airship set down in a massive cradle not unlike what one would find supporting a ship in a bottle. Airship keels were flat and could land on the ground, but they required supporting lines attached to pylons to ensure that a strong gust did not tip them over.

  The ship’s crew extended a gangplank to the debarkation platform built onto the cradle. Highlord Nahuza’s honor guard crossed the gangplank ahead of her. The six men-at-arms wore full plate armor and wielded halberds. Each carried a sword on their hip should it become necessary to engage in close-quarters combat.

  In reality, their roles were mostly ornamental. Highlord Nahuza was arguably the second most powerful sorcerer in the empire, secon
d only to Emperor Arikhan. Should the need arise to defend herself, she was capable of unleashing a torrent of destruction that would ensure no one around her survived to get close enough to strike at her.

  A delegation of mostly minor functionaries gathered near the base of the stairs leading down from the airship cradle. They bowed before her when she descended to the street. Resplendent in her multi-hued shimmersilk robe with its stiff collar seemingly cradling the back of her head, the highlord paid scant attention to the delegation and graced her citizens lining the streets with a smile that did not come close to reaching her eyes.

  While Overlord Alexis Victore was the city’s functioning governor, she answered to Nahuza as Velaroth’s true and supreme leader, under Emperor Arikhan of course, who ruled the empire. As a highlord, Nahuza would never deign to live in a city filled with lowborn, instead tasking the overlord with the day-to-day bureaucratic duties while she and the other cities’ highlords resided in the grand capital of Phaer.

  A man dressed in black and wearing a red cape trimmed in silver marking him as the city’s chief inquisitor was the first to stand and approach the highlord.

  Quinlan pressed his forearm across his chest and ducked his head. “Highlord, I am Chief Inquisitor Quinlan. I shall be escorting you to the palace, if it pleases you.”

  Nahuza raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow set against skin as white and flawless as the porcelain masks the highborn’s slaves wore. She was a statuesque woman and loomed a full head taller than the inquisitor.

  “This is the first time a chief inquisitor has headed my escort. It is rather unusual.”

  “It is, Highlord, but I have taken over the investigation into some recent assaults against the city’s highborn and urged Overlord Alexis to grant me the honor. I pray it does not offend you, Highlord.”

  “I care not about such frivolities. You believe these scum would dare strike at me? That, I find insulting.”

  Quinlan shifted uneasily. “It is more of a hope than a belief, Highlord.”