Highlords of Phaer (Empire of Masks Book 1)

by Brock Deskins

  Rayna lifted her hands and jingled the chains clamped to her wrists. “It’s a little more than mere assumption. Particularly considering which side of the table you are sitting at.”

  “I was on your side just moments ago, and once before weeks prior to that. I need you to believe me when I say that I am on your side, and I am here not just to save your life but to strike a blow against the highlords’ tyranny.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  Jareen sketched the symbol representing Nibbenar’s dissidents’ meeting places on a piece of parchment and slid it across the table. “Because of this.”

  Rayna glanced at it. “So what? It’s a doodle, nothing more.”

  Jareen took the parchment back and drew two more symbols on it. “And these.”

  Rayna could no longer deny what the symbols meant. “How do you know about those?”

  “Because my wife created them. I found them encoded in her journal.”

  Rayna’s stern façade slipped to one of surprise. “You’re Clear Sky’s husband?” she asked, using Claire’s code name.

  “I assume you are Sunbeam.”

  Rayna nodded. “Clear Sky said you were on the outside, that you were not part of the fold.”

  “That changed when they killed her and my son.”

  “That’s why I haven’t gotten any messages recently,” Rayna said, her eyes dropping to the tabletop. “I had hoped maybe things had just heated up and she was laying low for a while. What happened?”

  “Her brother Aiden and others were caught after trying to assassinate Highlord Nahuza. She ordered a blood purge.”

  “Dear gods. What do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to confess and implicate some of your fellows.”

  Rayna’s head snapped up, her eyes filled with defiance once more. “Are you insane? They will execute the lot of us! Probably order a purge on all our families as well!”

  “No. Confess to rabble-rousing, maybe conspiracy but not to having actually committed any sort of treason. Overlord Caelen furnished me with documents of procurement. Overlord Donas has tentatively agreed to his request and ordered you remanded into my custody to work in one of Vulcrad’s mines.”

  “I would rather hang!”

  “It isn’t like that, Rayna,” Jareen swore. “Do you know Atin Cienne? I think his code name is Forge.”

  “I only know him through a pilot who is imprisoned there.”

  Jareen nodded. “Lorbash.”

  “Yes, how do you know him?”

  “I have spoken with them both.” Jareen leaned across the table and gazed into Rayna’s eyes. “We are creating an army and equipping them with weapons the likes of which have never before been seen, but we need you and your people.”

  “How can we help when we’re stuck digging holes inside a mountain?”

  “Not digging holes, building an airship…out of void steel.”

  Rayna shook her head. “Impossible.”

  “Lorbash thinks otherwise.”

  “Lorbash is a great pilot, but he’s also a drunk and more than a bit touched in the head. Just mining enough void stone to smelt into sheets would take years, even with the giant nugget they found.”

  “I have found a solution to that. Mining and rolling sheets of void steel is not going to be a problem. Can you do it?”

  A host of theories and schematics ran through Rayna’s mind as she mentally laid out a plausible design and calculated internal stresses, weight, and material strength. “Yeah, I think I can if materials are not a problem and I had access to all the tools I need, not to mention an entire shipyard.”

  “All of that is being taken care of as we speak. Everything you need, Atin’s people will build, from a ship cradle to cranes and whatever else you require.”

  “And I take my people with me?”

  Jareen shrank into his chair and the tenuous excitement fled his face. “Most of them.”

  “Most?” Rayna asked, anger and suspicion returning to her voice and countenance.

  Jareen paused, stared at the tabletop, and chose his next words carefully. His entire plan hinged upon Rayna understanding the need to make sacrifices for the greater good.

  “Upon your confession and implicating your fellow conspirators, Overlord Donas will publicly hang three of them as an example.”

  Rayna bolted to her feet, only the shackles secured to the table preventing her from leaping across and striking Jareen. “Are you out of your mind? You may as well ask me to execute them myself! These people trust me with their lives, and now you expect me to betray them?”

  “Rayna, their lives were forfeit the moment they agreed to conspire against the empire. Just as I did and you did, and my wife did. I understand what you are feeling at this moment. I imagine it is what my wife felt when she realized how many people she loved were going to die because of the stand she took against the highlords, innocents who never raised a hand or even a voice against the emperor. I know the anger and disgust you feel. I levied it upon my wife when I learned of my son’s death, but I have come to realize that those emotions should be imposed only upon the highlords, for it is they who are at the root of all our suffering, not those who are punished for opposing them. Let their deaths mean something.

  “The people you implicate will be martyrs for a cause greater than any individual life, even one as precious as my son’s was. His senseless death was what gave me the strength to finally do something, something meaningful. These small jabs against the highlords like the ones my brother-in-law, Atin, and you perpetrate are pinpricks and are barely felt. What I am doing, what we can do if we work together and are willing to make sacrifices, will bring them to their knees and expose their necks to our blades.”

  Rayna sat back onto the chair and fought to steady her trembling hands. “You are asking me to enslave myself and several of my friends in the empire’s darkest pit and sacrifice the lives of others on nothing more tangible than your words.”

  “Words spoken by the right person, at the right time, and with true conviction can be the most powerful force in the world. Add your voice to mine, and our words will reverberate with enough power to bury the highlords beneath Phaer’s ruins.”

  Rayna stared up at the ceiling as if beseeching the twin gods for divine guidance. Receiving none, she turned her gaze back to the mortal sitting before her. “All right. What do I have to do?”

  Jareen slid a document across the table. “Write down the names of everyone you need to build the airship. I will note that they are crucial to the highlords’ and Sah Auberon’s plans. You will need to name others as well.”

  “As sacrifices,” Rayna said, the words tasting as bitter as she made them sound.

  “Only three of them, and I have been promised that there will not be a blood purge.”

  “How beneficent of our dear overlord,” she replied with a contemptuous sneer.

  “I promise you, Rayna, their deaths will be repaid a thousand times over.”

  “I will revel in every one of them, yours included if you betray me.”

  “You will certainly get the chance, for I need one more thing from you.”

  “What more can I possibly offer?”

  “A crew.”

  “A crew?”

  “I am in control of Sah Auberon’s airship, formerly Velaroth’s flagship, but I have less than a full complement and need people I can trust, particularly a pilot and a team of innervators.”

  Rayna flashed Jareen a wry smile. “The more I give, the more you ask for. You would have made a good highlord.”

  “Look at it this way, you’ll have plenty of people ready to put a knife in my back if I betray you.”

  “Well, when you put it like that, I can hardly refuse.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “I have just received some interesting news from Vulcrad,” Highlord Vagar Merrick said.

  Highlord Huet Benele looked at him from across the miniature diorama depicting the entire city of Ph
aer decorating the center of the expansive room. “Did they find another big rock, Vagar? That seems to be the only thing of interest that ever occurs in your abysmal city.”

  “I know the most valuable resource in all of Hedon cannot hope to compare with Glisteran’s discovery of a new species of carrot, but I thought the information important enough to relay to the emperor,” Vagar retorted.

  “It was an entire line of tubers, and it has increased Glisteran’s entire yield by sixteen percent. I would consider staving off famine quite thrilling.”

  “Enough, both of you,” Arikhan commanded. “What is the latest news from Vulcrad?”

  Vagar looked toward Highlord Nahuza. “You may find this particularly interesting, Nahuza. You recall Auberon’s ridiculous display when you last visited your city?”

  “Some fools tried to assassinate me. I could hardly forget it.”

  “It seems he has found a way to shatter rock with his strange powder.”

  Huet rolled his eyes. “Oh, breaking big rocks into little rocks, that is exciting.”

  Vagar smiled at his fellow highlord and swiveled his knowing gaze to Arikhan. “Overlord Caelen claims that he expects to more than double the output of void steel with this new mining technique. So much so, that we are likely to generate quite a stockpile unless we train and employ more techno-arcanists.”

  Emperor Arikhan considered this a moment before speaking. “While this is indeed good news, this project is far too important to risk becoming general knowledge. We will stick with the sorcerer craftsmen we have, but increase their working hours. While I sense the Great Tempest is waning, I am certain there is another storm brewing, but I know not its form or from whence it comes. No matter what its paradigm, we must be prepared.”

  “You said we had time,” Idesa Chauvery, Thuum’s highlord, said.

  “Not as much as I had thought. Not nearly as much, but enough, I am sure. Particularly in light of Sah Auberon’s magnificent discovery. If his and Overlord Caelen’s claims prove true, we will have to reward them greatly. Especially Sah Auberon. I have been watching him for some time now and have been impressed with the young man.”

  “You will elevate him to overlord over his mother?” Nahuza kept her voice steady so as not to betray a hint of the unease she felt.

  “Perhaps higher,” Arikhan replied.

  “A highlord?” Nahuza asked. “There are no cities available for him to rule.”

  “No, not yet, but things change no matter how much we might wish otherwise. He is young, something none of us have been able to claim for more than a century.”

  “And we all have more than a century of life left in us, an eternity if we complete the transcendence.”

  Arikhan smiled. “As I said, things change. We are an empire after all, and empires need to expand. We continue to tame the wildlands and have already created several sustainable townships. It may soon be time to commission another great city. Such a task would be well-suited to someone of Auberon’s cleverness and ambition. There is an entire continent across the sea after all.”

  “That is why you are allowing the Great Tempest to abate,” Highlord Donas reasoned.

  “I am allowing nothing. The tempest’s waning is inevitable. I have chosen not to resist its natural decline.”

  Nahuza nodded. “Thus the transcendence contingency, should we prove inadequate to repel the Necrophages’ eventual return. Finally, we see the full scope of your mechanisms.”

  “My dear Nahuza, you will never know the entirety of my mind, but now you all understand what is most important and the need for such secrecy. I do hope I can count on you all to do what you must when the time comes. It is quite a thing to ask much less carry out.”

  The highlords exchanged glances and nodded in unison.

  ***

  Rayna led the procession of prisoners, her hands shackled, head held high, and eyes defiant. She cast hate-filled glares at her jailers, principally at the chief inquisitor. Not even Jareen was spared her ire, and only some of it was feigned. Quinlan and Nibbenar’s overlord had forced Rayna and her people to watch their comrades’ execution before marching them onto Jareen’s vessel for transport to the mines. Overlord Donas had decided it was necessary to hang five of the conspirators, not three as originally agreed upon, in order to send a powerful message to others who thought to rise up against their betters.

  Jareen thought he detected an easing in her posture when she apparently recognized many of his newest crewmen. Rayna had told him to speak with Irna Michaud, a skilled but low-ranking pilot. Jareen had left the rest of the recruiting to her, and she had returned early this morning with just over a score of men and women who she swore were loyal. Whether any of that loyalty was to him or exclusive to Rayna, he was not yet certain.

  Rayna was not the only one to take notice of his new crew members. Quinlan handed his prisoners off to several of the gendarmes accompanying him and stood next to Jareen.

  “New crew?” he asked.

  “Rounding out my complement.”

  “Why were you not fully manned before leaving Velaroth?”

  Jareen shrugged. “Lack of planning mainly. The ship was never important to Sah Auberon beyond relieving his brother of it until he needed transport to Vulcrad. Sah Driscoll stripped it of crew before handing it over and launched a campaign to make it difficult for Sah Auberon to enlist another. I simply did not have the time to scour the city for sailors I trusted and who were willing to oppose Sah Driscoll’s spiteful embargo. Nibbenar presented me the opportunity to fill out my complement without having to worry about Sah Driscoll’s negative influence.”

  Quinlan nodded. “As always, a perfectly reasonable response. You are masterfully adept at those, I must say.”

  “It is easy when you choose to be on the right side.”

  Quinlan cocked an eyebrow. “An interesting choice of words. The right side of what, exactly?”

  “The right side of history, of course.” Jareen looked across the deck and saw several gendarmes emerge from the hold. “It looks as if the prisoners are secured. We are about to disembark, so you should get your men and depart.”

  The inquisitor smiled and shook his head. “No, my men and I will stay on to guard our prisoners. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to them en route, like them getting misplaced.”

  “Trust me, I desire to get them to Vulcrad every bit as much as you.”

  “Trust you? No, Jareen, if I live to be the emperor’s age, I will go to my grave not trusting you.”

  Jareen smiled. “We can only hope.”

  ***

  The Voulge followed the escort vessel around the towering, somewhat dormant volcano’s north face, beneath which lay Vulcrad’s void stone mine. Jareen noted the change in the signaling flags streaming from atop the escort ship’s mainmast and sought out the signaler on its deck with his spyglass.

  Following the signaler’s directions, the Voulge continued to sail past as the escort ship turned away and resumed what he assumed was its sentry position above the crater’s rim. As the Voulge cruised past the volcano, Jareen stared in wonder at what he beheld below.

  The entire north side of the minor mountain was an enormous pit, at least three hundred feet deep and half a mile wide. Swarms of workers scurried along numerous ramps and ladders and operated huge pieces of machinery. A natural lava flow coursed along a raceway, spewing forth from a fissure near the base of the volcano. The magma ran beneath what appeared to be a massive kiln over which was suspended an enormous crucible transported by a series of cables and pulleys. The molten stream disappeared through another fissure in the pit’s northern wall.

  Jareen directed his pilot to one of a pair of airship cradles. He chose the one closer to the pit’s steep walls as he assumed the other was meant for building the void-steel airship, given the number of workers bustling about and the cranes surrounding it. Perhaps the most conspicuous things, if any one thing could possibly stand out above the complex industrial chaos,
were the enormous teams of rammox used to move and operate a variety of heavy machinery.

  Quinlan and his guard contingent trailed after Jareen as they led their prisoners down the boarding ramp to the crater floor. Jareen raised a hand in recognition when he saw Atin and his usual entourage striding toward them with brisk steps.

  “You have returned!” Atin called out, grinning from ear to ear. He waved his arm in a half-circle. “What do you think?”

  Jareen looked about in wonder. “It’s amazing. How have you done so much in so little time?”

  “As much as I would like to expound on the greatness and ingenuity of my men, I have to admit that most of this was already here. This is the original pit mine my father helped dig before I was even born. They closed it down about thirty years ago when a tremor opened up the mountain and the magma chamber emptied into the pit. Since the mine was mostly depleted by then and the mountain now clear for mining, they moved the operation inside, leaving most of the equipment here. All we had to do was clean up and repurpose what was left behind, bring in what else we needed, and we were ready to get to work.”

  “Truly incredible,” Jareen said. “When will you be ready to begin construction?”

  “We already have! Sah Auberon’s powder delivery arrived a week ago, and we used it to blast our first tunnel to create a direct route from here to the mountain’s heart—as direct as we can make it anyway. I have one crew rolling out hull plates as we speak.” Atin peered past Jareen’s shoulder. “I see you managed to wrangle Rayna. I won’t ask why she’s in shackles. I just hope she’s willing to work.”

  Quinlan looked from Rayna and her people to Atin. “So, this is what all the secrecy was about? You are building an airship?”

  Atin shifted uncomfortably. “We’re building a new kind of airship, and as such, Overlord Caelen has declared it a state secret. I can’t make you forget what you’ve seen, but I have to inform you that speaking of it with anyone is strictly forbidden, and now that you’ve delivered my shipwrights, I need you and your men to depart the area. Jareen and I have a lot to discuss, most of which is privileged information.”