Veiled Empire

by Nathan Garrison

  “Well?”

  Impatient, aren’t we? He smiled. It was a good sign. “As we speak, there is a revolution under way.”

  “Another one?”

  “Yes, but this one is different.”

  “How?”

  “Gilshamed leads them.”

  “Gilshamed?” Her face went blank as she accessed her ancient memories. “Oh. Oh! So it’s not just your usual band of bloodthirsty fools.”

  “Indeed.”

  She tilted her head, peering off into the distance for several beats. “Do you think they have a chance? Can they actually succeed?”

  Draevenus shrugged. “Nothing is certain, even now. But their actions have drawn Rekaj’s attention fully. It was only because of that that I was finally able to break you free.”

  Angla fell silent, twisting her lips in thought. “I . . . did not mean to be harsh with you, son. They were poor first words for our reunion. It was a long, trying time, and despite your best efforts, I’m afraid I’ll carry scars—physical and otherwise—the rest of my days.”

  “I should have done better, mother. For you, at least, I should have—”

  “No. You came. You did what you could, when the rest of the world had forgotten about us. Thank you.”

  Draevenus put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her to his side for a moment. When he looked at her face, she seemed to be holding back tears.

  “So,” said Angla, turning her head away. “How is your sister?”

  Draevenus nearly teased her for changing the subject so abruptly, but thought better of it. We’ll get the old you back someday. “Alive, last time I communed with her. Still seeking knowledge. Still thinking she alone carries the fate of all worlds on her shoulders.”

  Angla opened her mouth in a sneer, but rather than spout the retort he was getting ready for, she merely pursed her lips for a moment. “I am . . . glad she is well.”

  “Don’t be angry with her, mother. Please.”

  “I have every right to be. She obviously doesn’t care one whit about me!”

  “She does, though. She’ll never admit it, but she cares a great deal. She just . . . spreads it too far, too thin. I’ve had to look hard, but I’ve learned to see the greatness in her, and even, on occasion, some goodness too.”

  “So she’s a saint now?”

  Draevenus looked at her crookedly. “I didn’t say that.”

  The walked in silence for several marks. Finally, Harridan turned, and said, “Just up past the next bend in the trail.”

  Draevenus called his thanks.

  “Is this your mysterious surprise?” asked Angla.

  He nodded. “Listen, mother. Things are happening in Mecrithos. Events of dire import. I need to be there. I must. I can . . . travel faster alone.”

  A pained, frantic look entered her eyes. “You’re leaving?”

  He spread his hands, palms up. “I’m sorry. Don’t worry, though. I’m not leaving you unprotected.”

  She stared at him quizzically until they rounded the curve and came to a moss-covered amphitheater nestled just off the trail. The stone benches were crowded with men. Draevenus watched his mother’s face as she took a quick count of them. Three hundred. Just as many men as mothers.

  Angla turned a sharp gaze on him. “Bodyguards?”

  “Maybe. In time. Just plain guards for now. I’ll let you get to know each other. When each of you is ready, you can choose a man to be your own.” He smiled. “The first step in restoring your darkwatch.”

  She scoffed. “They don’t look like much. And how do we know they can be trusted?”

  “You are mierothi. I’m sure you can think of some way to form a mutually beneficial relationship.”

  She stared blankly at the men. After half a dozen beats, a smile began spreading across her face.

  Draevenus remained stoic, but inside he was beaming. Asserting themselves, after so long a slave and prisoner, was a crucial step in their recovery. Based on her response, it was moving even more swiftly than he could have hoped.

  Angla stepped into the center of the amphitheater and waved the rest of the women forward. She quickly explained the situation to them, taking the lead as Draevenus hoped she would. The other mierothi, though timid, seemed to take comfort that one of their own had hope for their future.

  A pile of wood had been stacked in the fire pit but not yet lit. Angla stepped up to it, pushed her hands out in front of her, and took several deep breaths. The wood ignited.

  “Still got it,” Draevenus said.

  Angla raised an eyebrow. “Was there ever any doubt?”

  He shook his head. Not anymore.

  The blaze soon became a roaring bonfire, and some of the men piled on even more logs. Others brought food and passed it out, firstly among the women. Draevenus saw no small amount of smiles as those long chained were finally able to experience the simple pleasures of life—a warm fire, a shared meal, and people who wished to spend time in their company without demanding anything of them.

  Harridan soon unveiled his fiddle. Draevenus sat down next to him as he played and sang. Most of the men joined in the singing. Some even taught the words to the women, who had never heard the tunes. Someone brought out a set of skin drums and beat out an accompanying rhythm. The sun set, but the singing and swaying and smiling continued until deep into the night.

  As Chant began to put his fiddle away, Draevenus spoke up. “You’re a Ragremon, right?”

  Harridan froze in the act of closing the case. Slowly, his movement resumed. “Aye.”

  “Do you . . . remember?”

  Chant grunted. “That I do.”

  Draevenus nodded, losing his gaze in the embers. “Will your people rise for this?”

  Chant remained silent for half a mark. Finally, he leaned back, exhaling loudly. “I have a nephew, Idrus. Good lad. Best eyes I’ve ever seen. Joined the army at sixteen along with several other boys from our village. By eighteen he was asked to join the darkwatch but refused. By twenty, all his fellow soldiers called him crazy for not trying out for the Elite.

  “He was waiting, you see, for one particular Hardohl to graduate. The son of the best man I’ve ever known, and the first void in history to possess the blood of our people.”

  “Mevon Daere,” Draevenus said.

  Harridan nodded. “Idrus was just one of many. Will our people rise, you ask? The answer is no.” He paused, chuckling. “We have risen already.”

  Draevenus shuddered, chills shooting up his spine. “I see.” He stood, reaching for his pack. “Take care of my mother, will you?”

  “ ’Course.”

  Draevenus energized and ran off into the night. Taking the trail until it met the main road, he began shadow-dashing, often reaching as far as a klick per jump if the path ran straight. All souls were converging in Mecrithos. He could almost feel the pull, like a beacon of destiny drawing him in, as history wove itself into the annals of time, playing out in the lives of so many blazing souls.

  And I will be there—I must. After all, who else is willing to contain the chaos? Who else can?

  CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED IN minute, painful increments. Pain and darkness were the first bubbles to surface in the sea of awareness. Confusion quickly followed.

  Where? When? Who, even? Panic rose as the answers to such simple questions eluded her. Why can’t I remember?

  A dull ache throughout her body and tingling numbness on skin pressed into a hard surface let her know she had been lying for a while. Days, most likely. The sound of her breathing grew louder as the fog cleared from her ears. She struggled to wiggle toes and fingers, stamping down her fear as her body refused to respond.

  No. I am not paralyzed. I. Will. Move!

  She felt a flush wash through her at the thought. She smiled, loosing a tear, as her limbs shifted in
response to her mental commands. She briefly thought about trying to sit up but discarded the idea. It was only a matter of time now. Recovery was certain. She remembered . . .

  I remember falling. . .

  Her eyes popped open, vision swimming in shapeless, ever-changing objects on a backdrop of pure blackness. She blinked, trying to banish the images, but they persisted. The place she was in was truly dark.

  Falling. Then . . . nothing. . .

  She pressed her arms down and managed to shift her hips a few fingers to one side. Her whole body groaned at the motion, then seemed to exhale in relief. She counted it a victory.

  No. Not nothing. I . . . I did something. The ground came up and I. . .

  Thought. Motion. Remembrance. She focused on these things as the beats ticked by into marks. Tolls? Time seemed strange, a jumble with no clear beginning or ending, and no way to tell where on its wheel she fell.

  Power flooded into me, through me. Outward. Down. I . . . I pushed. . .

  Cold. Stone. The words drifted up, giving meaning to the object upon which she lay. Her fingers explored its edges. Smooth, right angles greeted her touch. Not natural, then. Something crafted.

  I pushed . . . but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t even slow. No hope. No chance to survive. Had to try something crazy. Something impossible. . .

  Her hands reached out to her sides. The right met only emptiness, but the left stopped short as it came to a vertical surface identical in feel to what was beneath her. A wall, then. A wall and a bed. She was in a room.

  I made a barrier. Round. Hard. In the center was only air, but I knew I could change it. Make it something else. Don’t ask me how I knew. . .

  “It usually happens this way. Go on.”

  If she was in a room, then someone had brought her there. How many? Who were they? Were they still here? She held her breath, straining to hear. The sounds of multiple people breathing came from somewhere close. Her eyes were beginning to adjust, and she could just make out the shape of the room—low, square, featureless.

  Air is not emptiness. I felt it then, as I fell. More importantly, I understood it. It’s so full, bulging with energy, just like everything. I saw below me a million million million tiny specks, and around each, spinning so fast and tinier still, as many more.

  “Few ever have the privilege to see as we do. Marvelous, is it not?”

  Sorcery. Magic. Caster. Fire. She grunted in effort, recalling what she was capable of, and shaped her will into a ball of flame hovering above her hand. The enclosure sprang forth into her vision. Four walls, the stone glistening in the flickering light, and there . . . a doorway. Through it, she saw . . .

  It was simple, really. I just had to pull the specks apart, reshape them as I needed. Simple, but draining. The power required was far beyond what I thought myself to be capable of. Still, the air changed, thickened. No longer air at all, really. I slowed.

  “Efficiency will come with practice. And power? Well, something can be done about even that.”

  . . . three figures. Two stood in doorway, one man, one woman. The third sat in a chair beyond them. Despite the stern visages and diamond-shaped blades poking up from the backs of the two closest, she felt her gaze inextricably drawn to the small figure enfolded in robes, the cloth as dark as the void.

  I hit the ground, but not hard. I tried to stand but felt light-headed, feverish, disoriented. Heat and darkness overtook me then. . .

  “Enlightenment comes with a price. Even when it is woefully incomplete.”

  Recognition hit her like a hammerblow between the eyes. She knew them. She’d seen them before. The dark one years ago, when she’d learned something important, something useful. And all three much more recently—at the village eaten by darkwisps. She had looked through time, viewing past events. These three had been there . . . collecting . . .

  The next thing I remember is waking up here. Clever, this place. Handy, too, having a shelter or barricade available at the flick of a wrist.

  “Another bad habit I will have to break you from. That is, if I decide to let you live.”

  She cracked open her lips, surprised at how moist they were. Had they been giving her water? Her first attempt at speech resulted in a faint squeak, followed by hoarse coughing.

  Oh? And what is the criterion for my continued existence?

  “To start, you can tell me your name.”

  She cleared her throat.

  ~snap~

  And time resolved itself. No longer a bouncing ball but once more a straight line.

  “Jasside,” she said. “Jasside Anglasco.”

  “Anglasco?’ asked the robed figure, the voice that of a girl just shy of her teen years. “Anglasco?”

  Jasside furrowed her brow. The girl had said it wrong the second time, emphasizing the first syllable rather than the second, pronouncing the “s” like a “z”, and saying the last two letters as if they were a separate word. “I . . . yes. That is my name. Why?”

  “Your father was a daeloth.” Not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “He killed your mother by the order of one of my kin.”

  “Yes. How do you . . . ?”

  “What did you do next?”

  Jasside gritted her teeth. “I talked my way into his chambers one night, posing as a bit of entertainment. Young and innocent, just like he preferred. When he was . . . sufficiently distracted . . . I stabbed him in the neck with a poisoned hairpin.”

  “He never recognized you?”

  Jasside shook her head. “He never . . . never saw me. I was a stranger in his eyes.”

  The girl stood. “Good. It is important that you remain completely honest with me. I cannot have my new apprentice keeping secrets.”

  “New . . . apprentice?”

  “It’s been ages. So few these days ever prove themselves worthy. And I do not have it in me to help those who are not capable of helping themselves.” She flipped back the hood of her robe, revealing a young, pasty face framed by scales.

  Jasside sat up. “If you want me to be your apprentice, I have some conditions.”

  “Really, now? I could just kill you.”

  “You could. But you could have done that awhile ago, too. My demands are not harsh, but I would rather die than fail to secure them.”

  The young mierothi girl smiled. “Very well. Let us hear what the child has to say.”

  Jasside stood. “First, my friends. You will not harm them or ask me to do anything against them. Second, you will take me back to them and let me finish what we have begun.”

  “Done and done. Is there anything else?”

  “One last thing. Tell me what your name is?”

  Jasside felt a pulse of dark energy shoot out from the young mierothi who was not young at all. The walls vanished into mists, and she became blinded by the sudden influx of sunlight. She blinked away the glare and found herself amidst a strand of trees in the middle of a vast, grassy plain. The two Hardohl moved away and began loading up a pair of oversized rucksacks.

  “Vashodia,” her new mistress said. “As if you didn’t already know.”

  GILSHAMED STEPPED THROUGH the doors of the Silk Path, inhaling deeply of a rich, floral scent. White-marble floors met walls adorned with priceless works of art. Women entertained their male guests—albeit tamely—on furniture fit for kings, sipping Taditali private reserve from caster-spun diamond glasses. The opulence was almost blinding, particularly after years spent traveling the wilderness.

  Looks like I have found the right place.

  He stepped towards the concierge, expecting to find at least a handful of guards at a place like this. Instead, only a single old woman stood between him and the rest of the establishment. Gilshamed gave her a smile.

  The old woman looked him over stoically, seemingly unperturbed by both his impo
sing figure and disheveled appearance. “Any weapons?” she asked.

  Gilshamed had left his pack, which held several daggers and a hatchet, outside the city. He had been able to fly over the walls easily—almost too easily—hiding his incursion with a spell of light bending, but would not have been able to do so weighed down.

  He unclasped his sword belt and handed it over. As the old woman’s fingers brushed against him, he understood why no other guards were necessary.

  “No casting,” said the Hardohl, who obviously felt what he was when they had touched. “There are wards in every room. Won’t harm you, just knock you out before you can blink.”

  “Thank you for the warning.” Gilshamed struggled to refrain from laughing. He could see the wards affixed to the ceiling of the lobby. They were attuned for casters of dark energy only. Against him, they would be useless.

  Gilshamed stepped past, presenting a purse to the concierge. Gold glittered as it fell open on the woman’s podium. “A room, please. One with an unobstructed view to the south.”

  Unlike the rest of the women he could see, nearly every bit of her skin was covered, all the way up to her neck and down to her toes. “Very good, ser. You’ll be wanting a bath, I presume?”

  “Yes. And there should be enough there to get me new clothes.” He quickly explained his requirements, which she must have memorized, for she wrote nothing down.

  “Would you like to peruse our fine display of nubile—”

  “No. Any will do.”

  The concierge clapped her hands, and a sultry-faced, curvy woman, wearing nothing but a few scraps of silk, came to take his arm. She led him to a lift, a sorcerous construct that raised them to the seventh level of the building. They passed several soundproofed rooms before stepping through an open door.

  Here, red reigned supreme, suffusing every surface in a gaudy and unsubtle motif. Gilshamed ignored it all, heading for the balcony.

  He was stopped by a tug on his arm. “This way, ser.”

  Sighing, Gilshamed let her shuffle him into the bathing chamber. A silver tub, already filled with steaming water, awaited them. The view could definitely wait—he had been looking forward to this for days. He quickly stripped out of his dusty traveling clothes and sank into the tub, gasping in near ecstasy as the hot liquid encased his skin.