Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones

by Vox Day

  “That is an unusual perspective,” Corvus said, thinking that the elven mind was a strange one indeed.

  “The alternative is to embrace the half-elven idea.” Lord Silvertree shrugged and emptied his wine glass. “Which would be the ultimate irony, considering that the royal policy has always been to eliminate any half-breed discovered. And the non-elven mother, of course.”

  “Mother? What about fathers?”

  “There are very few elfesses who find mortal men to be the least bit attractive. I suppose if you imagined how attracted you are to an female orc, or perhaps a goblin, you might have some idea how little appeal humans present to most of us. No, it’s not quite that bad. Perhaps dwarves would be a more apt comparison.”

  Corvus nearly choked on his wine. He found it very, very difficult to believe that he was the consul aquilae suffectus, he was meeting the Lord Ambassador from the High King’s Court of Elebrion, and he was being lectured on comparative breed shagging from the elvish perspective.

  “I take it my son need not worry about the Lady Shadowsong becoming overly enamored of him, in that case?”

  “I don’t believe I, or any other elf in any of the three kingdoms, would dare to attempt to say what the Lady Shadowsong will or will not do in the future. I would sooner attempt to predict the wind. I don’t pretend to fathom her interest in your son, nor could I possibly tell you what it entails. But you need not fear their friendship becoming overly close. She will not sacrifice her magic for a few short years with your son.”

  That was good to hear, although Corvus didn’t understand what the contradiction was. “What of Savonderum? Would not an alliance of kings be more palatable to your sovereign?”

  “No.” Silvertree’s answer was succinct and decisive. “The king of Savonderum covets our magic. The crown there has long claimed ownership of all those with sufficient magical talent, and this is accepted by the royal mages there. They live their short lives like birds in gilded cages, and their very existence is seen as an offense by our magisters. For every war we have waged with your people, we have fought three against them. And, moreover, we are more valuable allies to Amorr, since the use of magic is anathema to you. The time is coming, I fear, when you will find that you cannot be so delicate in forswearing it”

  “We provide the armies, and you provide the sorcerers? It makes sense.” Corvus toyed with his glass, then met Silvertree’s inhuman eyes. “Against whom?”

  “That is the pertinent question, is it not?”

  But the question wasn’t answered, for at that moment the elven ambassador’s eyebrows rose as if he had heard something. A sparkle of light floated through the air, unattached to anything and devoid of any support. At the sight of it, Silvertree pushed himself gracefully up from his chair. “It appears the consul civitas has arrived. Please excuse me while I ask him if he will consent to join us.”

  “Of course,” Corvus nodded.

  Truth be told, he was glad to have a few moments to consider his thoughts. While Marcus’s familiarity with the elves was no news to him, he was surprised and a little concerned about the extent of it. He’d been proud of his son’s part in the successful embassy, but in its aftermath he had probably devoted more time thinking about the consequences of what that success might mean for his son’s future career in the Church, and about the unsettling problem of the false Michaelines, than he had about the implications of any future relations between Marcus and those elves he had met in Elebrion.

  And once Marcus had decided against taking vows, Corvus had almost completely forgotten about the entire affair in the course of helping the boy take his first steps on the cursus honorum while simultaneously overseeing the creation of the third House legion.

  As he was privately debating the wisdom of marrying off Marcus to one of the available Andronicans. Torquatus entered into the large library room, followed closely by Lord Silvertree, and nodded to Corvus. It was an inward-focused, distracted gesture, and despite an initial surge of annoyance, Corvus wondered what business could have been so urgent as to delay the man in the present situation.

  “My apologies to you both, especially you, my lord ambassador. You will forgive me, I know. I had several insistent visitors whose business required immediate attention. A delegation from the Church arrived at my home just as I was setting out to come here and begged me, as consul civitas, to name the next Sanctiff for them.”

  “Who was in the delegation?”

  “Oh, Eusebius, Vizantus, and four or five other celestines. They’re all terrified, of course. Vizantus kept going on about Satanas invading the sanctity of the temple, and apparently everyone suspects everyone else of being possessed or in league with the dark powers.” He grimaced and shook his head at Silvertree. “It may have been a mistake asking you to come to the chapel, you know.”

  “Why is that?” The elf’s pale eyebrow rose ever so slightly.

  “You know how word gets around, especially when there’s bad news and people are frightened. Merely hearing the word elf associated with the murders has half the priests there convinced that you killed the celestines with your evil elven sorcery.”

  “It is to be expected.” Silvertree did not appear to be concerned. “I trust you informed them otherwise.”

  “I did a lot more than that. I told the sackless chicken-livered eunuchs that if they didn’t decide amongst themselves who would be the next Sanctiff that I’d bloody well name you the head of the Church and see them all damned! This has gone on far too long, and with the recent events, we need to have a Sanctiff named and sitting on that throne of old bones before the people start getting restless.”

  Corvus was startled, but the astonished expression on the elf’s face almost made him choke on his wine.

  “Please tell me you didn’t actually tell them that, my lord consul.”

  “You can bet your sorcerous elven arse I did, Ambassador!” Torquatus’s face was red. The walk from his domus clearly hadn’t been far enough to calm him entirely. “And if they don’t give me a name to announce to the Senate tomorrow, I’ll damn well put the crown on your head and slip the Fisher’s Ring on your hand myself!”

  “Don’t worry,” Corvus assured the speechless elf, who was at a complete loss for words. “The princes of the Church are not about to permit Titus Manlius to name the new Sanctiff. They will provide him the required name. Indeed, I expect they’ll present him with several in order to prevent him from making the decision for them.”

  Silvertree regained his customary composure. “If you require an elf, I have heard the archmage Bessarius now shares your faith. No doubt he would make for an admirable Sanctified Father. Indeed, an unforgettable one. But I shall heed your advice, lord consul Corvus, and put my mind at ease concerning the matter. It is only that I was thinking of the potential difficulties in explaining such a turn of events to my liege.”

  “Hell, he’d probably be delighted,” Torquatus said sourly. “In any event, Corvus, I’ve sent a message to Patronus asking him to convene the Senate tomorrow afternoon. If those blue-skirted ninnies can manage to stop their teeth chattering long enough to pronounce a name, we should be able to have him safely enthroned and installed in the palance before the winter festivities begin. Now, my lord ambassador, what can you tell about these murders?”

  Torquatus picked up the glass that their host had set on the table for them without looking at it. Lord Silvertree smiled as Torquatus, unsurprisingly, was even more startled by the spirited elven wine than Corvus had been and nearly dropped his glass as a result.

  The elven ambassador took advantage of the consul’s momentary discomfiture to answer his question.

  “If I may safely assume now that I will not be expected to take on any religious duties during my sojourn here, I must ask if you are familiar with the race of sorcerers once known as Witchkings.”

  “Not in the least,” Corvus confessed.

  Torquatus shrugged and glared suspiciously at his glass. “They ruled in t
he north long ago. They were men but corrupted by their sorceries. Their name has been a byword for human evil for centuries, but I don’t see that they were very different than the men of Savonderum are today. What does that have to do with what happened in the palace last night?”

  “Possibly nothing. Possibly everything,” Silvertree said. “But you are correct: They were men, and their sorceries did corrupt them. Now, I am old enough to remember the end of the last war against them, although I had not yet begun my studies in the arts. I served as an archer under Prince Newellyn, who was cousin to King Mael. At the time, Mael was merely the crown prince. Rather foolishly, we underestimated the Witchkings, and two of our four lost kingdoms fell to them. Although we considered ourselves to be masters of every form of magic, we learned to our great cost that we were wrong. Their great sorcerers had developed a new and more deadly magic that was very difficult for us to effectively counter.”

  “That must have been a shock,” Torquatus commented.

  “It was more than a shock—it was a terrible blow to our pride. For four thousand years, we had reigned our corner of the world unchallenged, the boundaries of our lands set only by the will of our kings rather than the strength of our enemies. War has always been the noblest game in the eyes of the elven race. But suddenly it became apparent that it was a game no longer, that we were engaged in a brutal struggle for our very survival with a vicious and depraved foe who would stop at nothing, absolutely nothing, in their quest for mastery.”

  “They sound like ogres.” Corvus found it hard to imagine any foe more ruthless than an ogre lord. Not that orcs ever shirked from devouring their smaller cousins on occasion, such as when their logistics failed and their supplies ran low, but only the ogre lords were callous enough to knowingly begin a campaign with a plan to feed half of his troops to the other half.

  “They were worse. Ogres may feed upon the flesh of elf, man, and beast alike, but the Witchkings didn’t hesitate to devour their spirits. And their ambitions were outrageous. They didn’t dream of ruling over merely the material world but over the spiritual realms as well.”

  “You can do that?” Torquatus looked skeptical. “Forgive me, my lord ambassador, but this sounds like a lot of arcane nonsense, and I don’t see what it has to do with the princes of the church murdered last night. Which, if you don’t mind me reminding you, is what we’ve come here to discuss!”

  “So you have. My apologies, my lords consul, but at times I forget that men often find elvish forms of expression to be tortuous and more than a little tiresome. I shall attempt to proceed a little more expeditiously to the salient point. And while the cruel character of the Witchkings is, I admit, not terribly relevant here, I am afraid the specific form of their peculiar and pernicious sorcery may be extremely pertinent to the events with which you are concerned.”

  “The ritual patterns in the blood,” Corvus guessed. “And you think it was Witchking magic, only that’s not possible, since they were wiped out long ago.”

  “Not quite, but you are thinking along the appropriate lines, Consul. The unique aspect of Witchking magic was their approach to the plane that men conventionally describe as demonic. They were far from the only ones to make use of a connection to the entities of that dimension, as the Collegium Occludum has long had a school devoted to it, the occasional Savondese mage has been known to dabble in it despite the formal royal proscription, and of course, it is the basis of the greater part of orcish shamanism.”

  Torquatus glanced at Corvus. His expression of dismay mirrored the emotion Corvus himself was feeling. “You’re talking about demon worship.”

  “Not at all.” The elf shook his head. “Quite the opposite, for the most part. Obviously many of the lesser races such as goblins and kobolds worship gods that are clearly nothing more than petty demons that managed to make an impression on various tribes at one point or another. The relationship between, for example, the diableriste and the various demons he summons is more akin to master and servant than worshipper and god. Demon worship is supplication and propitiation—but to summon a demon and force it to serve your will instead of its own, that requires mastery.”

  Suddenly, the affable elven lord struck Corvus as being rather more dangerous, rather more corrupt, than he had just a few moments before. “Have you ever done that?” he asked tentatively.

  “Yes, of course. One must master summoning from the less nefarious nether regions as part of one’s training at the Collegium. It wasn’t an area of interest to me, so I doubt I ever summoned more than ten or twelve of the wretched things. Mostly very minor, very harmless ones, as you can imagine. I was simply attempting to get the requirements out of the way as quickly as possible since I was, as I previously mentioned to the consul aquilae here, much more interested in the alchemical arts. Demons are inveterate liars, after all, and the lesser ones aren’t very intelligent. So, as far as I am concerned, unless one is going to truly master the art, there is little utility to it.”

  “It would be hard to argue with your logic, Ambassador,” Torquatus agreed easily. “Since I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “But do you understand that Amorran law requires that those who consort with demons be put to death, Lord Silvertree?” Corvus asked. “It is one thing to look the other way if you happen to indulge in some minor magics from time to time. As you are the representative of the High King, Elebrion law holds sway in this residence. But there are some things that simply will not and cannot be permitted here in Amorr, and one of them is voluntarily trafficking with the enemies of God and the darkest forces of evil!”

  “I understand, my lord consul,” the elf said gravely. “However, would it ease your conscience if I informed you that the last time I engaged in any such occult concourse was more than three hundred years ago? I am, of course, willing to give any amount of assurances required that I will not do so again while I am a guest here in your lands.”

  Corvus and Torquatus looked at each other. The Amorran Empire had been founded only four hundred years ago. “Yes, I think that should do,” Torquatus said.

  The elf smiled. “Elven ways are not the ways of men. Nor, I hasten to add, are they the ways of the Witchkings. My lords consul, your church and your god speak firmly against consorting with demons, and I will not say they are wrong to do so. But if you believe that even mere discourse with them is evil that merits punishment by death, then I think you will readily admit that the sins of the Witchkings were far graver, far more despicable, and far more dangerous than anything we elves have ever done. Well, except for Bessarias, but that is another matter. For you see, they did more than summon demons: They discovered a means of bringing them into the material plane and keeping them here by binding them to the flesh.”

  The elf raised his narrow, pointed eyebrows, but neither Corvus nor Torquatus understood the distinction he was making.

  “Do you mean something like demonic possession?” Corvus asked.

  “No, possession is a temporary and artificial state. In such cases, the extraplanar being is only acting through the physical being like a puppeteer pulling the strings on a puppet and making it appear to dance. I am speaking of a chthonical wedding between a demonic spirit of the nether planes and the physical bodies of one or more living beings, which has the result of permitting the spirits to live and interact in our world while simultaneously permitting the bodies with which it had been merged to draw upon the dark powers provided by this unholy bond.”

  “That sounds like something straight out of Hell,” remarked Torquatus.

  Corvus couldn’t have agreed more. He knew the depravity of Man knew no bounds, but this was something altogether more distressing than he’d ever imagined. It was even worse than the nightmarish images of the bloody massacre in the chapel that still occasionally flashed into his mind’s eye without warning.

  “I suppose that would depend upon which of the nether planes you would regard as your Hell, but yes, that’s essentially true. An
d through this occult marriage of spirit and flesh, the Witchkings were transformed into creatures that were less than demons but more than men. They became formidable fighters and, much to our horror, we learned their mages had become very nearly as strong as our own, at least, as strong as the younger elven mages who customarily went to war. Their sorcerers were no match for the magisters of the Collegium Occludum, of course, but the magisters seldom bestir themselves in the service of anyone or anything except their own interests. If I recall correctly, Lord Consul Civitas, you had some experience warring against my people in your youth.”

  “A little,” Torquatus answered. “Nothing more than a few skirmishes, really.”

  “And yet perhaps you will understand that even though our armies were larger and our warriors more skilled than they are today, we found we needed to maintain a ratio of one-to-two if we were to expect reliable success against them in battle.”

  “Legionary doctrine still considers that one must have a five-to-one advantage before engaging elves, and that a ratio of seven-to-one is necessary to guarantee success.”

  “Accompanied, one imagines, by your doughty thaumaturges.” The elf smiled. “I can still recall those terrible battles against the Witchkings. Nothing had been seen like it before, and nothing has been seen like it since. Villages, cities, even mountains were destroyed by their demonic sorceries or the mighty retribution of our greatest magisters.

  “That was how we finally defeated them in the end. We could not beat them by force of arms. The kingdom of Glaislael had fallen, and those who were privy to the truth of the situation were lost to despair. Finally, the High King humbled himself and went to the Collegium in supplication. He went down on his knees before the council of magisters and begged them to intervene, which was without precedent in the three thousand years since the Vilthoniel the Wise first established it as a library and a center for arcane scholarship. Even so, the vote was close, as the magisters only deigned to join the war effort if the High King was willing to heed its council and obey its commands for the remainder of the war.”