by Mike Shel
“It’s more bad news for the western empire, or what’s left of it,” Auric answered. “If enough of the corsairs have skilled pyromancers and summoners in their ranks, they can defy the thin fleet Hanifax has patrolling this wing of the empire with impunity. The ports of Albemarr and Vessen used to be part of the Duchy of Valya, before Queen Geneviva put its duke’s head to work greeting visitors at the Mouth of Boudun. They consider themselves free cities now, which means they’re more or less allied with the pirate lords. Varcort in Kelse has been toying with the idea of declaring its independence for at least ten years. If Varcort defects, Mourcort and Kalimander won’t be far behind. This may be the development that teases Varcort out of the duchy’s already weak orbit, and finally makes the west tumble from the empire’s arms.”
“So what’s the commotion down there now?”
“I imagine this Captain Lessyr has ordered the Oracle and the Trials of Aelon back to sea to hunt down the pirate ships the dockworkers mentioned. Bald Pete. Who’d name a sailing ship Bald Pete?”
“Surly Wench sounds even less inviting, if you ask me,” Belech responded.
At that moment Gnaeus approached them, Del and Lumari trailing in his wake. “Gentlemen,” he opened, bowing with sham formality. “You have the rare opportunity to tour the lovely city of Tessy, accompanied by a superlative guide well versed in its…points of attraction. Will you accept this once in a lifetime invitation?”
“I assume taverns and bawdy houses feature prominently on your list of attractions?” responded Auric without excitement. “As you know, I don’t drink, nor am I in the habit of paying for a woman’s company. I’ll pass on this outing, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, Mother stays at home,” retorted Gnaeus with an eyeroll, undeterred by the refusal. He turned to Belech. “What about you, Grandpa? Or is it Grandma?”
“There’s plenty of drink aboard the Yaryx,” Belech answered, uncertainty in his voice.
“Bah!” spat Gnaeus, screwing up his face. “That grog you drink with the sailors tastes like it’s been strained through the queen’s undergarments. Come ashore to Tessy and taste something far better than that rank swill.”
Del guffawed at that. Lumari frowned. Belech looked at Auric for guidance. Auric shrugged.
“We’ll also visit a fine pleasure house where I’m something of a legend,” Gnaeus added, a sly grin playing on his face. “The Perfumery. Oh, the ladies are lovely and skilled, the beds stuffed with goose down, the sheets made of silk, smuggled from Azkaya. They adore me there. Likely cut a steep discount rate for my friends.”
Belech’s interest grew, as did Lumari’s. “A brothel?” she said. “There are substances more readily obtained from that sort of establishment. Perhaps the madam who runs the place would be willing to gather some of the ladies’—”
“I’m sure she would,” interrupted Gnaeus, holding up a hand. “But please don’t enlighten me further regarding whatever it is you seek.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind a drink on dry land,” ventured a sheepish Belech.
“Have at it,” said Auric with a wave of his hand. “Just make sure you’re all back aboard tomorrow morning before we cast off. Will Sira be joining you?”
Gnaeus laughed. “No, Sir Auric, the church won’t accompany us on this particular jaunt, by Lalu’s delicate toes. You can huddle in our cabin feeling superior while Sira prays for our souls. The latter will allow us greater latitude in our activities tonight.”
As the four turned for the ramp, Auric left the railing and caught Belech by the shoulder. “See to it the lad doesn’t do anything we can’t remedy.” Belech nodded, then hurried to join his three young companions already descending the ramp.
Auric stood at the port railing and watched the quartet walk through the bustling streets. When he lost sight of them, he pulled the book Sira had surrendered to him from his tunic, its pale cover embossed with stylized laurels. He opened it to the first leaf, where the title was printed in an elegant typeface. An illuminator had inscribed verdant green vines wandering through the lettering, accented with gold, no doubt at great expense. The next page had a likeness of Quintus Valec, not so different from his portrayal in the Citadel portrait. A plain, broad face with an exquisitely manicured beard framing his jaw, peaceful eyes looking back at the reader, two fingers held to his forehead as though captured mid-blessing. A veritable icon of serene wisdom. Below it was a label: Quintus Valec of Ulstermythe, Priest of the Blessed Mother, Ordained Year of Empire 729, Assigned to the Blue Cathedral in Year of Empire 734. At the bottom of the facing page was a small symbol of Belu, the laurel crown, with the word sanctio beneath it. Sanctioned. This was an official imprint of the church; no vanity project.
All priests of Belu seconded to a Barrowlands expedition were resident in the Blue Cathedral. Ecclesiastical scrutiny for such individuals was a task given to the highest levels of the cult’s hierarchy, with the archbishop herself figuring in the decisions. Unless clerics were under consideration for elevation in the hierarchy, they were sent to parishes across the empire after only a year or two of seasoning in Boudun. Valec had been at the Blue Cathedral for eleven years when he was dispatched to that terrible place below St. Besh’s priory. And here in Auric’s hand was a cult-sanctioned production of the man’s collected aphorisms. The church most certainly had its eye on Valec for loftier posts.
Auric studied the priest’s depiction, trying to imagine such a man, whose representation exuded perfect tranquility, losing his vocation and resigning the priesthood entire. It would be hard for most to fathom. Auric’s mind went to his own professional dissolution, perhaps a parallel in his loss of faith in the Syraeic League’s mission. Few would have thought him the kind of man to surrender his commission. But then, none would have envisioned him wandering the Barrowlands, half out of his mind, a severed head held under his arm. What was it Ozrin had said to him upon his return to the Citadel after that disaster?
“The reports were grim, Auric. We feared we had lost you to St. Kenther.”
They nearly had.
Auric turned several pages at once and landed on one with a single maxim on its leaf.
Welcome pain, for it is sent to instruct the wise man.
He felt a needle of indignation poking at him. Pain sent by the gods as instruction? It smacked of a cliché he loathed above all others: All that happens, happens for a purpose. The notion rankled him. It was his conviction that learning came to spite suffering, not because of it. Philosophers and priests who believed pain was a blessing in disguise could go fuck themselves. He closed Valec’s little tome, punctuating the act with a single word.
“Bullshit.”
“What’s that?” said a deep voice behind him. It was Commandant Mastro, who had been strolling the deck, hands locked behind his ramrod-straight back. The soldier joined Auric at the railing as sailors scurried about at change of watch.
“Oh,” answered Auric, returning the book to his tunic breast pocket, “my brilliant retort in an imagined philosophical conversation.”
“You are both swordsman and philosopher, then?” asked the blond-haired man with a square-jawed grin.
Auric laughed. “Hardly. I’m afraid I’m just a tough customer for those selling threadbare bromides of encouragement or comfort.”
“Ah! Her Majesty’s army is a veritable factory for such platitudes, Sir Auric, or at least its chaplains are. I know them all well. My personal favorite is that pain makes one stronger. Said in a thousand different ways.”
Auric shook his head. “It seems the cults of Belu and Vanic crib from one another’s notes, eh?”
Mastro nodded and placed his beefy forearms on the railing, looking out at Tessy’s busy dockworkers. “So different than the docks of Serekirk, don’t you think, Sir Auric?” the soldier inquired, picking a bit of nonexistent lint from his uniform. “I’ve been seaside there, but nev
er left the ship, of course—never thought it worth my time. That city seems a morose place. What are the lands beyond it like?”
“Uninviting. Grim,” began Auric. “Huge swaths of the terrain are little more than wasteland, and where there is vegetation, it’s either stunted or looks…well, corrupted. Of course, ruins of the lost Djao civilization litter the landscape, even between the major sites more thoroughly explored over the centuries.”
“‘And the gods did smite the cities of the Djao, so that one stone did not stand upon another, and a blight fell on the land, for they were exceedingly wicked.’”
“The Book of Marcator’s Glory, chapter two, verses sixteen and seventeen,” said Auric, recognizing the passage. His extensive training in the League made him as much a student of religious texts as any cloistered contemplative.
“About those major sites,” Mastro continued in a casual tone. “Have you ever been to Aem’al’ai’esh?”
Auric frowned, raised his eyebrows. “No, Commandant, I haven’t. The site was forbidden by royal decree nearly forty years ago, before my time with the League. May I ask why you inquire?”
Mastro looked down, tugged at his crisp black uniform and tidied himself, as though preparing for inspection. Auric sought to reassure him. “Sir, you may be candid with me.”
The soldier looked Auric in the eyes and his nonchalance fled. “I’m sure you know, Sir Auric, that the queen’s army tends to look down its institutional nose at members of the Syraeic League. Sees them as, well, mercenaries rather than sworn servants of the crown.”
“I am aware of this,” Auric replied, his tone gentle. Where was this going?
“Sir, this is not my own prejudice,” Mastro responded, giving the deck a quick scan as though others might be listening. “My father was an agent of the League, though I’ve suppressed knowledge of this so as not to impede my own military career, Vanic forgive me. He was part of the last official expedition to Aem’al’ai’esh. A swordsman. He didn’t return. I was in my mother’s womb back in Kilkirk when he was lost—the year was 738. I don’t know if anyone returned from that expedition. I’ve attempted to get more information—discreetly, of course—without success. I had hoped that perhaps the League had sent unofficial expeditions to the site since then.”
“The League does nothing in the Barrowlands without explicit royal approval, and Her Majesty has denied consent since your father’s fatal expedition. Contrary to popular rumor, we Syraeics see ourselves not as a mercenary organization, but as servants of Hanifax and its monarch.”
“Of course.”
“You became a swordsman like your father, Commandant?”
“A swordsman, but not like father. Mother made me swear I’d stay clear of the League. So I joined the army instead. It’s a less perilous life than the League, oddly enough. Did you follow in the footsteps of your father, Sir Auric?”
“I did not.”
“He wasn’t with the League, then? What was he?”
“A drunkard and a bully.”
Mastro looked at Auric in a way that felt as though the soldier was gaining the measure of him. Mastro at last gave him a thoughtful nod as he scratched his chin. “I have a son and two daughters at home in Kilkirk. I don’t want any of them following me into a military career, nor does my wife. Do you have a wife and children?”
“I did…I do. My wife is dead. Agnes and Tomas, yes, they followed in my footsteps.”
“And where are they now?”
“My son is also dead.”
“Forgive me,” said the soldier, bowing his head. “May I ask how he died?”
“A clever trap in an unimportant Busker tomb. A huge wedge of stone fell from above and cut him in half at the waist. He was killed instantly.”
“Oh! Merciful gods! Your daughter?”
“She lives,” he said. Belu permitting. “She swings a sword like her father.”
They stayed on deck for a long while, talking as the sun set behind Tessy’s towers. Night descended, a waxing moon illuminating nighttime activities aboard the Yaryx along with a few oil lamps lit by its sailors. Mastro didn’t share a single war story, speaking mostly of his family in Kilkirk. Auric mused to himself that Mastro had the look of a man who would regale you with endless stories of battle, just as Countess Ilanda Padivale looked like a pampered aristocrat. Grow wiser, Auric, he thought.
Soon after Auric promised the commandant he would investigate the Citadel’s archives regarding his father’s career when the opportunity presented itself, Lumari came bounding up the ramp, followed seconds later by Del. Lumari’s shirt was torn and her left forearm wrapped in a blood-soaked scrap of cloth. She was out breath as Del came up behind her, eyes lit with excitement.
“We need help!” the sorcerer began, huffing in great gasps of air. “Gnaeus and Belech, both in a fix…at a tavern…got to come quick!”
“What’s the tavern called?” snapped Mastro.
“The Five Flagons, out on Banacre Street,” said Del between efforts to fill her lungs.
“I’ll meet you there with some of my bully boys,” said the commandant, heading with alacrity for the ship’s aft.
Auric directed Lumari to the cabin where she could inform Sira of the situation and allow the priest to tend her wound. He considered retrieving his armor, rejected the idea in favor of the need to make haste. He and Del headed down the ramp back into Tessy.
“What the hell happened?” asked Auric as they ran.
“Gnaeus took us to a few taverns. By the third, he and Belech were getting very drunk. He started boasting about being the son of Tessy’s earl…Gnaeus, that is.”
“Great gods, Del, I’m not a dotard.”
“Sorry. A few wags at the bar started taunting Gnaeus. Gnaeus was too drunk to acquit himself well with blade or banter, and—”
“A picture begins to form in my mind. And Belech?”
“The man can pound back pints of ale like no one I’ve seen.”
“Del…”
“It got ugly. I didn’t use sorcery because I don’t know the local ordinances. Didn’t want to wind up in a hangman’s noose if magic’s forbidden. Lumari and I had nothing but her empty vials for the whores and the blades you make us wear. We got away to come for help. As you can see, she’s absolute shit with that sword you picked out for her; she cut herself.”
Auric grimaced. Del led the way through Tessy’s narrow midnight alleys, taking one wrong turn before righting herself and landing them in front of the nondescript Five Flagons. A stocky, balding man wearing a stained apron paced in the street before it, worrying a rag in his hands. Shouts and the sounds of rising violence came from within the wooden structure.
“Barkeep!” called Auric. “Have you alerted the city watch?”
“Gods, no!” replied the man, his brow furrowed. “They’ve been here four times this month already! Watch captain’ll close me for a for’night if they hafta come by again. Do you know the goddamned sots inside what started this ruckus? Big man and a blond-haired rake with a mouth?”
“To my great shame,” Auric responded. “You can hold off calling the watch for now. Marines from our ship are on the way.”
Del and Auric turned to head into the tavern, when another thought struck him. “What are the laws regarding sorcery in Tessy?” he asked the overmatched barkeep.
“Hanging for any unnecessary use of magic,” he answered, his eyes growing wider.
“A remarkably vague ordinance,” observed Del.
“Only if it’s life or death, Del.” The sorcerer nodded.
Within, the common room was a wreck. Several round tables were overturned, the contents of pewter tankards spilled on the floor. Two men lay unconscious on their backs, and another two sprawled with hands to bloody noses. In a corner next to the bar were Belech and Gnaeus. Gnaeus sat on the floor, legs splayed out like a
child playing with blocks, his head bowed, but rapier thrust out before him. Belech stood next to him, blinking and unsteady, wielding a long plank of wood. Four rough-looking characters were held at bay by the inebriated duo’s bravado. Auric presumed they were local. All bore cuts and bruises, and the tunic of the lead man, dark-haired and broad-shouldered, was torn from neck to gut.
“Back off, you peasant swine!” slurred Gnaeus, loud and haughty, still looking at the ground with his head swaying. “My father won’t tolerate this kind of—”
“Son of th’ earl,” sneered the man in the torn tunic. “That man spills ‘is seed int’ cracks in the thoroughfare, lad! It’s no great achievement to be squeezed out of some harlot’s spoiled cunny, no matter if the earl squirted ye in or no! Is your surname ‘Whoreson’ by chance?”
Gnaeus lurched to stand. “I’ll take your nose for that infamy!” he sputtered.
Belech held onto his plank with one hand and grabbed Gnaeus’s collar with the other, giving it a firm yank. Gnaeus fell onto his backside in unceremonious fashion, but managed to keep himself from landing prone with a free hand. The point of his blade dipped, and the ruffians made ready to lunge forward.
“Hold!” yelled Auric. The four drunken locals froze, turning to his shout. “I am Sir Auric Manteo of the Syraeic League, bound for the Barrowlands on Her Majesty’s business. These men are part of my expedition and must return to our ship immediately. I regret this unfortunate incident, gentlemen, but ask that you allow us to leave in peace.”
“Peace?” growled Torn Tunic. “Sir Arwett…whatever y’name, fuck the queen mother and all ‘er bloody servants! I don’t care if yer on yer way to polish Lalu’s tits at Heaven’s grand gates! I say the earl’s son don’t leave ‘til I’ve shoved ‘is own cock up his arse! So get out th’ way, old man!”