by Mike Shel
Citadel agents and staff greeted the three of them with enthusiasm, with slaps on the back, offers to buy drinks, and requests for a retelling of their adventure. The well-wishers grew abruptly solemn when the three of them began to attend the bodies of Belech and Gnaeus, wrapped and tied neatly in shrouds made of sailcloth. Several offered to help, but Auric and his two surviving companions politely refused: they would be the ones to take their fallen comrades to the Citadel mortuary, where the resident priest of Mictilin would see to the burial preparations. Her name was Gonsette, and she received the corpses with reverence, placing them on marble tables designed for the cleric to practice her sacred rituals. The black, opal-sealed container that housed Del Ogara’s ashes was also given to the priest, who would arrange for their transport to the Royal College of Sorcerers following the funeral mass that would be held for all three of the dead in the Citadel’s old chapel.
“Bury Gnaeus here,” Auric told the gray-robed priest. “But Belech’s body will accompany me back to Daurhim. Please prepare it for the journey. Baroness Hannah will want him interred in the family crypt, I’m certain.”
Lictor Pallas Rae met them just as they left the mortuary, a wan smile on her lined face. “You can see the happy effect your expedition has had,” she said, patting Auric and the others on their shoulders. “Fevers lifted, the afflicted awakened, all on the same evening, as if they’d been napping. Most are still weak and need time to fully recuperate, but the disease is dispelled. Your sacrifices were not in vain. Thank you, Sir Auric.”
Auric gave the lictor a modest nod, then bowed his head, suddenly weary in both body and spirit. He swallowed hard, looked up at Pallas Rae and said a single word: “Agnes.”
She was propped up on her sleeping pallet when Auric arrived at her cubicle, the young priest Raimund sitting at her bedside, chatting and holding her hand in his. She looked tired, her eyes fatigued, skin pallid, but she smiled when he entered, accompanied by the lictor.
“Papa!”
“Hello, daughter,” he said, eyes brimming with tears.
Raimund dutifully vacated the chair for Auric, who approached Agnes, embracing her where she lay.
“You managed it, Papa!” she said in a voice so like her mother’s it made Auric’s heart ache. “I hope you’ll allow me to attend you at the inquiry—I must hear it all.”
“Of course, Agnes,” he answered with a smile that seemed somehow inadequate for the joy he felt in that moment. “Lictor Rae told me of the role you played in this whole affair. I’m bursting with pride, at your courage, the strength of character you demonstrated throughout this ordeal.”
Agnes smiled back, sleepy eyes beaming at the compliment. “I thought you’d be angry,” she said, “because of the risks I took.”
“I would have been, once. It’s a parent’s prerogative to worry for a child’s welfare, even if that child is a woman now. But this is the life you’ve chosen, and I can’t withhold my support despite the anxiety you provoke, brave girl.”
“Thank you,” Agnes replied, tears falling from her own eyes now.
“For now, sleep, eat, do what you must to make a full recovery. I’m sure the lictor will hold off on my inquiry until you’re well enough to be present.”
“Yes, Sir Auric,” said Lictor Rae, still standing in the doorway. “We’ll speak to the others first. In two or three days, we’ll meet, and you can tell your story to both of us.” She paused for a moment. “Do you have anything for me?”
Auric was puzzled at first, then recalled how well informed lictors of the League tended to be. He reached into his tunic and withdrew the diviner’s scroll, encased in its intricately-tooled leather tube, and handed it to the old woman without comment. Let’s see what she and the League’s linguists can make of that hopeless mess, he thought.
It was not until the fourth day that Agnes was well enough for the lengthy session that was an official Syraeic inquiry. There was a specially designated chamber for the purpose at the Citadel, an oval theater with table and chairs on a stage for the expedition participant and his interlocutor, surrounded by three tiers of seating for those League members with sufficient privilege to observe. In this case, Auric sat at the table with Lictor Rae, Agnes seated next to him in a chair normally reserved for an agent’s advocate, if one was required. A transcriptionist in white robes sat at a small desk beside them, ready to record the proceedings verbatim. Only nine or ten Syraeic agents and staff sat in the observation tiers.
“I have no wish for a larger audience,” said Auric at the outset. “But I have to say I’m surprised so few are in attendance.”
“Yes,” nodded Rae. “But you must remember that the pestilence depleted our numbers significantly. In addition, I felt this required a bit more discretion than your average expedition inquiry, Sir Auric. We will make a transcription available for the archives when we’ve had time to consider and review its contents. Now, if you would please describe the events to us, in your own words.”
For over four hours, Auric recounted their endeavor, from the audience with the queen, to their sea journey, the visit to Kenes, the run-in with pirates, the encounter with the Duke of Kelse, and the events in Serekirk and the Barrowlands. He left out no detail he could recall, no matter how insignificant it might have seemed to him. He had been through this process many times before, and knew that at least one of the attendees in the observation tiers was a priest of Tolwe, a truthspeaker, who would likely detect any outright deception. It had been done this way for the League’s centuries-long existence. Lictor Rae asked for clarification or greater detail when necessary, but for the most part let Auric narrate his own tale with little interruption.
When he had finished, Rae asked the attendees in the observation theater if they had questions for him. A squat, middle-aged woman sitting at the first tier’s railing stood and identified herself as Maura Versalli. “What do you think this being calling itself the Aching God actually was?” she asked in a voice filled with gravel.
“Remember first, Sister Maura, that it was the original expedition’s survivors who gave this being its name. It did not call itself that. It first said it couldn’t remember its name, then that it did not matter.”
“Of course,” said the woman, waving her hand in the air as if to dismiss her earlier words. “But was it truly a god? Doesn’t the fact that you presumably killed the thing suggest otherwise? Or should we call you ‘Godslayer’ now?”
Auric noticed two of the attendees sitting together in the second row make quick sacred gestures, as if to protect against such a blasphemous notion. “If it was one, sister, it was a god for nightmares. However, having never met a god face-to-face before, I couldn’t say definitively. It certainly thought itself a god, and demonstrated powers I have neither witnessed in past expeditions, nor read of in any of the archived League annals.”
Versalli nodded, apparently satisfied with his response. “Forgive my phrasing of this next question, Sir Auric,” the woman said, looking at her hands as she spoke. “But how is it then that you dispatched the avatars of this ‘Aching God’ with such relative…ease? And subsequently killed it?”
“Yes…’ease’ doesn’t seem the right word, but I think I understand your meaning. The god—if it truly was one—recognized the sword, called it Ush’oul. I don’t know the word. It’s not Gutter Djao, nor Lesser Djao, and I assume it isn’t Middle Djao.”
A man with a green gem set in his forehead stood. “Helmacht of Aelbrinth,” said the sorcerer by way of introduction. “It is not a word or phrase of the Middle Djao dialect, I can attest to this.”
“Thank you, Helmacht,” said Auric, continuing. “My guess is that the weapon was forged by the Djao with a specific purpose: to combat whatever sort of being this Aching God was. Or at least they gave it properties that made it highly lethal to the being because it had taken on an earthly form, quite literally.”
“So you do think this being really was in the very stones of the ruins?” asked Versalli with some skepticism.
“I do. We saw ample evidence that the ruins had…grown, for lack of a better term. Metamorphosed? The very structure had changed markedly from reports made by the first expedition. I assume it’s this growth that caused the earthquake that brought down the priory’s bell tower.”
“This artifact you possess absolutely demands further study,” said Helmacht. “I think it appropriate for you to relinquish the sword to our diviners here at the Citadel.”
“Sir Auric has claimed the sword as his own, Helmacht,” Lictor Rae interjected. “It was not recovered from the Djao ruin. Therefore, we cannot claim it in the League’s name.”
“Technically, we could,” began a thin, balding man in the second tier, raising a bony finger. “If one were to consider the statutes of the Third Centuriate Convocation—”
“I will not challenge Sir Auric’s ownership of the blade, through legal maneuver or otherwise, Brother Jahl,” Rae said, stopping the pedantic man. “I must remind you that Sir Auric resigned his commission with the League three years ago, and graciously committed to this expedition out of our urgent need. He gained neither booty nor payment from the endeavor otherwise. The sword is his.” She held up the scroll case Auric had given her when they had first spoken. “We have the reading conducted by our Counting House diviners in Serekirk. You’ll need to satisfy yourself with that document.”
“But you said it’s a tumultu, Lictor!” Helmacht said in a cantankerous tone.
“A tumultu?” asked Auric. “I’m unfamiliar with the term.”
“Sometimes, when diviners conduct their rituals with ancient artifacts, they are possessed by alien spirits,” replied Rae. “What those spirits reveal is often a conundrum, most difficult to untangle. There are occasions when our linguists can decode a tumultu, after much study, or at least parts of it.”
“Why have I never heard of this?” Auric felt strangely like a little boy excluded from adult secrets.
“It is rare,” Rae responded.
“Extraordinarily rare,” said Helmacht in a low growl.
A pale, slight man in simple clothes, with heavy-lidded eyes and short blond hair that seemed somehow incongruous with his worldly, haggard face, stood in the third tier. “Olbach of Lakebader,” he said with a curt nod. “Another question, Sir Auric, if I might. This Aching God’s final words—”
“Uszur’aal’bec’da’oud.”
“Yes. It seems a very odd jumble of differing dialects, not unlike a tumultu. Are you absolutely certain of the pronunciation?”
Helmacht stood again and interrupted this new interlocutor. “Our best linguists are parsing the phrase, Brother Olbach,” he said, irritation on his face and in his tone. “And Sir Auric is no specialist.”
“I am aware of this, brother,” said the pale man without rancor, giving Helmacht a polite bow. “I merely wish to know his degree of confidence in his recollection of how this being spoke those words. You have some knowledge of their pedigree, Sir Auric? This is certainly a fair question, Lictor Rae. Does Sir Auric know where this phrase has been encountered previously?”
Pallas Rae held out her hands. “We have not yet informed Sir Auric of its significance.”
“May I?” asked Olbach.
“I object,” said Helmacht, still standing stiffly. “I hardly see how this is a wise or fruitful path to pursue.”
“Brother Olbach may proceed,” answered the lictor. Helmacht sat down with a sour frown on his face. Olbach smiled thinly at Pallas Rae and turned back to Auric, who felt foreboding creep up his spine. “As you know, Sir Auric,’ said Olbach, “absent knowledge of the intended pronunciation of certain Djao words, translation is problematic at best.”
“Every novice knows this, brother,” responded Auric.
“You know of the ruins at Aem’al’ai’esh?”
“The Forbidden Pantheon, yes.” Auric thought back on his long talk with Commandant Mastro aboard the Duke Yaryx, the revelation that the man’s father had perished in those mysterious ruins, where Coryth the Revelator had first encountered the gods.
“Well, that phrase, or something very like it, is documented in the archives, found in several forms at Aem’al’ai’esh. Your account of a variant of the phrase spoken by a being presumably fluent in the tongue is of considerable value.”
Auric was confused. “I don’t know what to say about that, Brother Olbach, but I am very sure of the pronunciation. Did Lumari and Sira not confirm it during their interviews?”
“That is all I have,” said Olbach, who sat down with a knowing smile.
“Is it?” sneered Helmacht from his seat. “You think your dangerous dabbling will pay off, eh? At what price, Olbach? Dark means yield dark ends.”
“With the special assistance we now have at our disposal, yes, whatever your prejudices might be,” Olbach answered, serene. “I think it will pay off.”
“Assistance?” asked Auric.
“Assistance which we are not permitted to comment on further, Sir Auric,” Olbach responded.
Helmacht shot up to speak again, his face red as a beetroot and his teeth clenched. Pallas Rae held up a hand, staying the man. “We need not involve Sir Auric any further in the disputation between you two, Helmacht. Olbach, please refrain from stirring the pot further.”
Olbach, sitting back in his chair with hands laced together and resting on his chest, nodded and smiled. Helmacht sat back down, glowering, and fingered the green jewel in his forehead as though it soothed him. While Auric tried to glean just what this feud was about, a brown-haired young man, also in the third tier of the theater, stood and spoke in a tuneful tenor, an otherworldly air about him. He had a ruddy complexion and not a little arrogance. “If you would then speak further of this Djao blade, Sir Auric, inexplicably gifted to you by the Duke of Kelse.”
Ah, thought Auric. The truth-speaker reveals himself. “Can you be clearer in your request, sir?” he responded. “What is it you wish to know?”
“Two things. First, why did the Duke give the weapon to you? There’s no doubt you all would have perished without the blade, on more than one occasion. Are we to believe that a madman conveniently provided you with the key to accomplishing your mission, through no merit of your own? That you were all saved by this conspicuous serendipity? By chance?”
Maybe it wasn’t ‘chance,’ thought Auric, not for the first time. But instead Auric said, “I have no rational explanation, sir. Our priest determined that the duke was quite mad.”
The young man looked at Auric with sour focus, dissatisfied with his response, but at a loss for how he might press the matter. At last the truth-speaker continued. “Second question: you said it felt as though the sword spoke to you, when you were before this Aching God. Did it indeed speak to you as I speak to you now, or do you employ a fanciful metaphor?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?”
“No, I’m not. Would you give me the courtesy of identifying yourself, lad?”
The young man seemed to bristle at this appellation calling out his youth. He tilted his head up, nose in the air. “I am Borwick Osweld, of the First Pillar of Verity.”
Of course, a novice, thought Auric. But why would Rae have a new truth-speaker present for this inquiry rather than one of the veterans? Surely an initiate of the fifth level or greater was warranted. Had the plague taken them all? He decided he would try to rattle the man.
“Well, Brother Borwick,” Auric said in a tone that did more than hint at condescension. “There are some circumstances in the field—especially those encountered in the Barrowlands—that challenge our natural perceptions. It is difficult to determine whether some things are illusion, delusion, or supernatural manifestation. When you have spent time in the ruins of the Djao you will have
a better understanding of these phenomena.”
Borwick stood for a few moments longer, staring at Auric with an unnerving intensity. Auric exerted every ounce of will to maintain a façade of calm openness, almost daring the young man to call him out. But finally, the truth-speaker sat down, scowling.
Lictor Rae asked if any others had questions they wished to ask Auric as part of the official inquiry. No one spoke, so Rae slapped her hand on the table. “This inquiry is complete.”
“I don’t like that one,” whispered Agnes in her father’s ear as they walked out of the theater. “He seemed ready to call you a liar.”
“He’s young, Agnes,” said Auric, allowing his daughter, still recovering, to lean on his arm. “First Pillar truth-speakers always come off as suspicious, self-righteous pricks.”
Agnes laughed, unused to her father employing profanity in her hearing.
But I am a liar, daughter, thought Auric to himself. A more seasoned truth-speaker would have seen it. Yes, I’m a liar. Because though the strength of my conviction waxes and wanes, in this moment I’m certain that Szaa’da’shaela spoke to me, in a voice clearer than any I have ever heard.
35
Homeward
Auric stayed at the Citadel for a week. During that time, he attended the funeral ceremony for Gnaeus Valesen, along with Sira, Lumari, and Archbishop Hanadis. Memorial services for Belech Potts and Del Ogara were also held, the latter attended by six strange hooded persons from the Royal College of Sorcerers. The R.C. representatives claimed Del’s ashes and binding gem at the end of the ceremony, nodding wordlessly to Auric and the others as they shuffled out of the Citadel.