by Martin Davey
The house was silent now, Landros could have believed they were the only people in the building, the only people in all the world. He wanted to move around the room, stand near the door, near the sword he had hidden there, but Laraine didn’t move. It felt as though she looked down at him over her long straight nose, though Landros was at least a finger taller than her.
“It isn’t an easy thing, Landros, to tell our tale.” She glanced at Dorian, her smile surprisingly fond and tender, crow’s feet creasing about her painted eyes. “Even when I came to Dorian here, he didn’t want to hear my words, he denied them all and denounced me. But then when he had time to think, to see the truth in my words, then he came back to us to listen, to accept the truth.”
Dorian walked around him, avoiding Landros’s eyes as he did. He went to the window to look out. Landros said nothing.
“But,” Laraine spread her hands, her fingers were long and three large jewels were on the fingers of each hand. “That is one luxury we don’t have these days. I’m afraid time is taking over us all, events happening before any of us expected them.” She smiled, though it looked strained.
“The girl needs to be taken to the Clerk,” Landros said. “If she comes back here, my men,” he felt Dorian stir behind him at the window, “Me and my men will take her back to Katrinamal.”
The smile remained and Laraine tilted her head slightly to one side as though in regret. “So you will take an innocent woman to be tortured by Clerk Killian?” She smiled at Landros’s look of surprise. “Take her to have her memories, her dreams, her identity stripped away from her? And for what?” She clasped her hands together again, the jewels in her rings glinting in the fluttering torchlight. “For being chosen by someone or something outside of her control? For being the last vessel for a world long lost to us all, for memories we would never know, that would be lost to us forever?” Her lavender eyes seemed to grow brighter in the torchlight as she spoke. “No, Landros, Ysora is a thing to be cherished, to be protected, we need to listen to her to learn of all that was taken from us.”
And there it was, Landros knew where the woman was leading to with this. “He questions the why!” Clerk Lovelin had said, his eyes spitting coals in the flickering light of his solar. And this woman was the same, he knew, she was questioning the Clerk, questioning the gods themselves. “She’ll be coming with us to the Clerk. If there’s anything she can tell us or teach us, she will tell it to the Clerk.” He tried to ignore the memory of the Clerk and the boy, white fingers pressed to his temples.
Laraine smiled. Landros was beginning to notice she did this a lot, but each one seemed to mean something different, a crease of her eyes here, a quirk of her lips there. Each smile seeming to be a wholly new expression. This smile looked challenging, dangerous, almost. “No.” A simple word, but it seemed to echo around the room like a challenge. Another smile, this one more conciliatory and Laraine finally moved away from the door, walking around Landros and further into the room. Landros moved as well, closer to the door, his back to it but feeling the comfort of the sword just behind him. Dorian still looked out the window, his shoulders tense.
“No,” Laraine said again. “People will die this day. Many people.” She sighed, though whether in regret or because she was searching for the right words, Landros couldn’t tell. “Many people, but,” here her eyes moved to the window, to Dorian. “We would rather you fight with us, Landros. We have heard that you are open to the words of truth, we don’t fight our war against good men like you. Join us and help us in our war, help us spread our word.”
Landros heard a rushing in his ears, felt the skin crawling across his neck and his back. The Nameless One. Hadn’t he said similar words sitting on his dark throne and brooding over the history of a world long gone? But no, Dorian couldn’t do the work of such a foul creature. He looked to his old friend, a friend who he felt he knew less every day. Dorian raised a hand to the window and turned back to the room, meeting Landros’s eyes, no shame there. “So what is it, join you or I die, is that it?” Landros almost snarled the words.
Laraine nodded at Dorian. “Eleven years ago, the forces of the Keepers came to this place looking for Ysora. They killed every man, woman and child here. Tonight our army will do the same, kill the Kneelers, the slaves of the Keepers. The Keeper is coming, we have seen his army marching, but they will be too late. They will learn they must pay for their savagery. We have hidden for too long. The time for hiding is at an end.”
Something burned in the distance through the window, bright in the night sky, the shapes of trees and bushes stark and black against the burning orange. Landros wanted to go to the window, to look out at the thing burning so large, but he kept close to the door. The burning was to the east, where they had ridden from. Where Yerotan was. It filled Landros with rage to see it.”The time for hiding is at an end yet you daren’t even say who it is you fight for.” He reached behind the door and pulled out the sword hidden there, found comfort and strength in the weight of the steel in his hand.
Laraine arched an eyebrow. “Daren’t?” she said. “The one we fight for has no name. None that shall be spoken in this world until it is free once more. Then we shall know his name.” Lavender eyes glanced down to the sword. “Put away the sword, Landros, join us in our fight.” Our fight. Because the woman wore armour bright and silver, she thought she could challenge the gods? Landros wanted to laugh at the insanity of it all.
He hadn’t realized he was going to strike until he swung his arm with all his strength at the old woman. She didn’t flinch, no expression on his face as the force of the block shook Landros to his shoulder.
“Stop this now, Landros.” Dorian held his sword between them, the parry not seeming to faze him. “The Landros I knew wouldn’t strike at a woman.” Still he held the sword levelled at Landros’s chest. “Listen to her words, you know the truth of them.”
“All I hear is talk of death and murder.” Landros held his sword loose in his hand.
“Death is all around us, Landros. The Keepers choose who lives and who dies, use lies and murder to control us all.” Laraine hadn’t moved away despite the sword in his hand, she leaned closer, trying to meet his eyes. “Think of Feren, think of your mother, think of Elian and tell me that they don’t. The Keepers can see beyond the boundaries of time and space and still they allow this to happen.”
Landros tried to ignore the roaring in his ears, the shaking in his hands. “Elian isn’t dead. She is at the Clerk’s house until I return with the woman.”
Another smile from Laraine and Landros didn’t like the sympathy he saw there, the creasing around her eyes, the understanding. “She was dead before you left Katrinamal. Killed for her memories, killed for something she hadn’t seen on Staxton Hill. How could she have seen it? It was all in your mind, the one we fight for visiting you in your dreams.” She leaned even closer now, nothing but sympathy in those eyes of lavender. “You saw the world that was, but poor Elian...” She nodded to Dorian, one quick nod and Landros barely had the time to parry the strike at his chest. Steel on steel, loud in the confines of the room and Dorian struck again, moving with an ease and a strength that would have surprised Landros if he hadn’t fought him countless times in the practice yard.
Another thrust from Dorian and Landros parried again, easier this time, gaining some room to fight in. Laraine had thought to distract him with talk of Elian, but she didn’t know him, didn’t know that nothing could turn his mind from battle. Landros rolled his shoulders and struck at Dorian’s neck, knowing the parry would come. He struck again, slow and methodical, allowing Dorian time for the parry. Something was wrong here. Dorian was a great fighter, but Landros had been able to best him since he was fourteen. Dorian knew this was a fight he couldn’t win. A fight he could never hope to win.
The door was open behind him. Even as he tried to turn his back away from the door and keep Dorian in his sight, he heard the movement.
A shuffle, a chink of metal
on metal and Landros turned and struck in one movement, the sword crashing uselessly against a black breastplate embossed with a golden orb. Three more armoured men behind the one Landros had struck, all with swords drawn. Landros struck three more times at the first knight, two parries and another that scraped off the rerebrace on his arm. Still the man screamed inside his helm against the fury of the attack. Landros spun away as the knights charged into the room, he met Dorian’s eyes and charged straight at his old friend. Even now he couldn’t cut his former Captain down, instead he lowered his shoulder and charged into Dorian’s chest. Both men went down, swords clattering to the floor.
Landros was first to his feet, grabbed his sword and jumped for the window, the glass tearing at his arms and legs and chest as it shattered under his weight. Men screamed and reached for him, but too late, Landros was already through the window, glass flying about him and his stomach left far above him as he fell two storeys to the ground.
CHAPTER 32
Yerotan was burning. Ysora watched it from the darkness. They were close now, close enough to see the flames licking the sky, cinders flying about the giant flames. She hugged her shawl tighter about herself; watching the flames made her feel cold.
A breeze was rising in the night sky pushing her hair away from her face and above her in the black tree a dark bird hopped from branch to branch watching the flames with her.
“We are fortunate to witness such a thing, Ysora.” Phailin came to stand next to her, his hair still carefully brushed to the side, his armour silver in the darkness. The army behind them looked dark, their amour black.
Ysora felt colder still when she saw the army, when she saw Phailin, remembering Cioran and his peeling face and bleeding eyes. Not Cioran, Cioran was dead, but something far more powerful and horrifying. The Nameless One walked the world once more and he had men, many men willing to shed blood to his foul memory. She felt a tear start down her cheek and wiped it away, tightening the shawl about her shoulders. “You might think so.” She hated herself for the quaver in her own voice, hated herself for the way her throat tightened around the words. “But not everybody is as in love with death as you, I think.” She turned away from the fire, looking back out across the dark army, the dark fields and the dark trees and hedges. A world of darkness and shadow where men fell to their knees before dead things, before nightmares from history. She closed her eyes against the memory, screwing them tight.
Phailin rested a hand on her shoulder, hard and cold. “Don’t fight the truth, Ysora, embrace it. Embrace what you know of the world, let the truth bring joy to your heart.”
Ysora said nothing, facing away from the man. How could he have been so understanding of her dreams, of her life, and then be an agent of the darkness? How could he have lied to her? She felt her skin crawl under his touch.
“You need to listen to his words, Ysora. Open your heart and hear the truth he speaks. You’ve seen the truth of him, you see it every night.”
She did turn at that, tearing his hand from her shoulder as she did. “I never dreamed of that thing! I never dreamed of dead things walking the night.”
Phailin’s dark eyes were understanding, his smile sympathetic. “You were chosen, Ysora. Why or by who or what, who can say?” He shrugged his narrow shoulders, his white cloak shivering in the breeze. “But you have a gift and you have a responsibility to share your gift with the people of the world. People will come to you, many, many people and you will tell them of your dreams, of the world that once was.” His eyes were bright in the darkness. “Can’t you feel it, Ysora? Can’t you feel the history of our people? The history of the world? Touch that tree next to you there, and close your eyes and think of the things it has seen. Think of the world it once knew. A world where people were free, a world where towers and castles soared to the sky, and brilliant beasts flew through the clouds with men riding on their backs, a world where colour and life were all.” He looked the same as he had when he knelt before the decaying, rotting corpse of Cioran.
“I’ve read the history books, Maronghavian and the rest, and all they speak of is cruel Kings and Queens ruling over a world of slaves before the Keepers saved us all. All you want is a world where dead things walk the earth.”
“You have been reading the wrong books, Ysora. Books written by the minions of the Keepers. Soon you will have your eyes opened and you will see that you have been blind all your days. And just because something is dead, does that make it,” he paused as though he hated to say the word, “Evil? When a good man dies and his body burned to ashes, does that make his soul evil and corrupt?”
Ysora had no answer to that, instead she watched the burning of Yerotan. Addison, Len, even Godie, were they still there? Dying and burning in a war they hadn’t known was being fought? Her heart ached for them. She remembered Addison and the way she had looked at Tiege, Len and his worries about the whore’s house. Such simple, trivial concerns in a world where the dead walked the land and men talked of battling the gods.
“The men of the Watch came for you again.” Phailin watched her from hooded eyes, the village still burning. “They’re still near Yerotan, at Farmer Mashin’s house.”
Ysora wrapped her arms tighter about herself. “Came for me? Again?” The Clerk wants the woman! If her dreams had been her own, that voice would have haunted them. She remembered the man, his hair wet with the rain, striking Gerard again and again. Was that man at Farmer Mashin’s house? What would he do with her if he caught her? “What do they want with me?” she whispered.
Phailin smiled. “You were chosen, Ysora. Chosen to tell the true history of the world. The Clerks and their Masters would have our history be gone forever, their lies in its place. Your dreams are all that is left of a world that once was, and still might be again. We need to know of these gods, be told of them that we might believe again.”
The wind was stronger now, howling through the branches of the trees over their heads. Even Phailin’s carefully combed silver hair ruffled in the wind.
“I’ve never dreamed of your Nameless One,” Ysora said, remembering eyes bright in the bloodied, flaking face.
Phailin frowned, his eyes cautious and grey as his hair, “Our friend is no god, Ysora. You’ve seen the gods, and if they are anything like we were taught...” he stopped and shook his head at the memory. “But no, he is no god. Only a man like you or I. A man born in this world and shunned by the Kings and Queens, hated and feared by them when he left his home to walk the world and spread the word.” Phailin smiled again. He smiled a lot, Ysora thought, but with Phailin it seemed a sadness, a cautious expression, forever watchful and wary and smiling a smile that wasn’t a smile. “But when the Keepers came and won their war, then the last of the Kings and Queens sought him out, begged him for aid in their war of revenge.” Phailin turned now to watch the fire rage in the distance. “So no, Ysora, he is no god. Only a man born to parents in a village not much bigger than your own. A man like any other born with a rare gift. A man who told us to seek you out and save you from the men of the Watch.”
“If you are to save me from the Watch, then why are we back here?”
“My sister and her men have taken care of the Watch. They will no longer be looking for you.” Said in such a careless manner, as though the men in the red coats were no more than a minor inconvenience. “But come, Ysora. My sister will be waiting for us. The army of the Keepers is not far.” He pointed a gauntleted hand out to the west where black hills rolled under velveteen skies. Trees black with thin branches, walls low and scattered about the fields. “No more than a day’s march away. More than three thousand men coming to rid the world of me and my sister. Coming to save a village that is already lost.”
Ysora looked to where Phailin pointed, the night sky dark with fleeting clouds. An army of the Keepers was marching? She thought of Maronghavian and his tales of armies thirty thousand strong, sunlight glinting off shining steel, banners rippling in morning breezes, songs loud in the cool air.
An army of the Keepers was marching. She felt she should see something, hear something, but all she saw was darkness and shadow as she peered into the night. Somehow this was more frightening than seeing a mighty army marching across the fields.
“We have hidden too long, Ysora.” Phailin’s voice was quiet, determined. “We can hide no longer. Come, my sister waits.”
Ysora took one last look across the dark fields before kicking her horse into motion and following Phailin, the sounds of leather and steel behind her, Phailin’s dark army quiet in the darkness.
Mashin’s house looked tall against the night sky. Men and women hurried everywhere, most of the men in black armour the same as those of the army Phailin had brought from the hills, all of them bearing the same golden orb embossed on the breastplate. Most of the women were armed with swords and knives, too. The fire of Yerotan raged across the fields, sending the green and yellow fields to flickering and shifting.
Ysora watched the flames, watched her childhood home burn. “So the work of the Nameless One is to slaughter helpless villages, this will return the world to greatness, will it?”
Phailin stopped before the double doors at the foot of the house, his white cloak hanging limply from narrow shoulders, his armour bright in the reflected light of the burning village. He carried his helm under the crook of his arm. Three men in black armour came out of the house, blood smeared on their armour, eyeslits dark in their helms. “This is a war we fight, Ysora. The time for hiding is at an end. What would you have us do, fight the Keepers themselves in their holy city of Eshotar as our first act? Our army is a small one, but with our deeds here and your help, our armies will grow. The truth of our word will spread.”