“He’s currently chained to a pillar at the Peak,” Oriana said.
Lord Ayres combed a wrinkled hand through his tough beard. “Yeah? You’d best unlock his chains. No one else has enough clout to band together the North. And someone best beg Farris Torb—”
A thundering commotion came from behind the closed council room doors.
“Sir, I—”
“Get the fuck out of my way,” barked Horace Dewn. Something slammed against the doors and they croaked. Another tremendous thud and one side flung open, while the other remained closed. Horace trudged in, his normally passive face abraded by urgency.
Oriana sprung to her feet, to her tiptoes, her auburn hair burnished by the thin ropes of sunlight splashing in from the windows.
“Rol,” she said, partly convinced it was him who trailed Horace and partly in disbelief. Thank the gods he’s safe. Behind Rol shuffled another man, old and decrepit. He had a swatch of disorderly silver hair that thinned across his temples, and he wore disheveled cream robes.
Where was Catali?
Horace threw a stiff thumb behind his shoulder. “Out,” he barked, a curt glare at both Lord Ayres and Cornik. Then, with a squint, “Lord Ayres. I didn’t expect you here. Ever.”
“I was just telling the queen here that she’d best beg Farris Torbinen for aid, because—”
“Farris is dead,” Rol said.
“And if not,” Horace added, “she’s on the run.”
Rol sidestepped Horace and came to Oriana. Slick, oily hair lay pinned to his forehead, and the skin under his eyes took on a sickly shade of gray. He shouldered off several large overstuffed sacks. “I got bad news, Ori. The—”
“Where’s Cat?” she asked, cutting him off.
He drew in a deep breath and shook his head like a man who knew the words he wanted to utter but didn’t know how to get them out. “Ori, she’s… she’s gone. I’m sorry.”
Oriana’s eyes fell to the table. She blinked once, then nodded at Rol. “I see.” There was more to be said and more to be felt, but it would have to wait. Cat wouldn’t have wanted her to grieve, not now. She’d have wanted Oriana to lead, to show why she deserved to be queen not only of Haeglin, but of this entire world.
“The giants,” Rol said, “they’re up and walking around.” He looked at his feet. “They leveled Torbinen.”
Lord Ayres straightened himself. “Hope’s dwindling, then. The West’s being razed as the lot of us sit here and talk.”
“Giants there too?” Rol asked.
“Hoofed creatures, no skin on their bones. Just some—”
“Raw muscle and tendon,” Craw said, joining the conversation. He put a hand on his knee and hissed as he took a step forward. “Old joints, they’ll get ya when you’re my old age. Well, anyways. The ones with hooves, they’re quick. Speedy little things.”
“You’ve seen them?” Lord Ayres asked.
“I beat the hell out of one,” Craw said. “They’re fairly brittle, but they’ll swarm you like bees. That’s the trouble with them. Now, the big boys—colossi, if you want to be proper—daft as you can imagine, but strong as iron. You won’t win a fight against either one, much less both at the same time.”
Lord Ayres kicked out a chair and sat in it. “Say your prayers, then?”
“Giants and hoofed creatures,” Cornik said, a smirk pushing up the corner of his sagging jowls.
“Demons,” Craw said. “Those hoofed bastards are called demons.”
Cornik leaned back. “I see. Sounds preposterous if you ask me.”
“Why don’t we strap to you a saddle,” Lord Ayres said, “and send you westward? See if you’re still as suspicious then.”
Cornik pulled his arms in and flicked his cuffs over his hands. “I’m afraid leisure and travel aren’t afforded to me right now. I must say, Oriana—”
“Lady Oriana,” Rol cut in.
“Rol,” Ori said, raising a hand. “It’s—”
“Ah, I see,” said Cornik. “My apologies. Are you her steward? Perhaps you should draw your lady a bath, allow her to relax. We could circle back to this topic at another time—a day when your queen doesn’t feel the need to concoct a laughably absurd scenario involving giants and demons, hmm?”
Oriana felt a fire in her cheeks. “You think this is a setup?”
Cornik shrugged his concealed hands. “It’s convenient, you must admit. You bring these men in here during our meeting, attempt to instill in my soul panic and dread. I assume you would have soon asked Plorgus to stand with you against this otherworldly assault. Imagine that—me returning to General Sessons—Plorgus’s temporary steward of the throne—telling him of demons and giants.
“He’d think me mad. He’d be forced to apologize for sending me along, and you’d put on a happy smile and tell him some men lose their minds faster than others. The two of you would share an uneasy laugh, perhaps bond over the fool you’ve made me out to be. In the end, on the strength of your newfound, if tepid, friendship, you’d strike a deal for peace much less harsh than the one I proposed.”
Rol parted his greasy bangs. “Did you ever step back and consider you may well already be mad?”
“Rol,” Oriana warned. “Emissary Cornik, I applaud your imagination, but you must know that I was not made aware of your arrival until you came to these doors. It would be impossible to have crafted such a story so quickly and shared it with each man here.”
Cornik offered Oriana a smile that infuriated her. Olyssi had often flashed such smiles— the childish, exaggerated kind that swallow one’s entire face. “I’m sure. I’m ending this meeting, men. And lady. I do hope you conquer your demons.”
There was that smile again, so big that it bunched up his eyes and puffed up his already chubby cheeks.
“Plorgus,” Horace said, watching the doors close behind Cornik, “always did have difficulty appointing competent emissaries. They often award such positions based on monetary gifts. Corruption runs thick there.”
“I’ve no bloody idea what that was about,” Rol said, “but I’d wager we’ve got bigger problems to consider.”
Oriana folded her hands behind her head and looked to the heavens in exasperation. The heavens stared back at her in the form of a solid flat ceiling of gray stone and formless shadows. Not very appealing as far as heavens ago. “We need to find my sorcerers and dragons.”
Rol pulled up a seat beside Oriana. “No chance. I’m not suggesting they’re dead, but”—he cupped his hand over hers—“you didn’t see what I did. Those giants, they flattened Torbinen. I mean it, just flattened the whole city.”
“They weren’t in the city,” Oriana said.
Rol tapped a knuckle against her head. “C’mon, Ori, use your smarts. If those colossi come here—”
“Then I’ll need my sorcerers,” Oriana interjected. “I’ll need my dragons.” She looked to Horace for support. He gave her none.
“How many dragons have you got?” Craw asked, leaning against a nearby wall. He itched his back against the wall, bunching up a draped banner featuring the Gravendeer sunwolf.
“Twelve. And over two dozen sorcerers.”
“Bah,” Craw spat, flinging a disregarding hand at her. “Copper bits, that’s all that is. Copper bits when you need whole gold coins, and wagons full of ’em at that. Luckily for you, Lady Fortune is at our side. Rol, show her the goods.”
Rol scooted his chair away from the table. He bent down and tended to the drawn overstuffed sacks Oriana had forgotten about. She figured they were filled with supplies—foodstuffs, flint, herbs, those sorts of things. She certainly didn’t think he’d come up with a needle. And was that a vial?
“Explain,” Oriana said.
Rol gestured to Craw. “I’ll let him do that.”
Hunched over, Craw kicked off the wall and hobbled to the table. Oriana thought he was exaggerating his frailty; her grandmother had done that often in her later years, enjoying the pity that came with it.
Rol pulled Craw up a chair, and the old man groaned as he lowered himself onto it.
It was at this point, when Craw sat square to her, legs open, that Oriana realized Craw either did not wear skivvies or had none to wear. She made a strong effort to look at his face and not a smidgen lower.
“Rol,” Craw said, smacking the table, “put ’em up here. Dump ’em out. These here,” he began, his voice drowned out by the clattering of vials and needles, “are mutations. Lovely little things, if you need ’em. Which we do. This one here”—he picked up a vial and held it close—“reads ‘fire—IM.’ Now, I know you’re a sorcerer, so you ought to be plenty familiar with elementalists.”
Oriana couldn’t help but notice Lord Ayres perk up. “How do you know that?”
“You’re Oriana of Liosis. You’re an infamous one among the Conclave.”
“You know the Conclave?”
“Yaw,” Craw said, chewing a loose thread of skin from his lip, “you could say that. Was a member of it for the past many years.” He looked at her and sniffed. “For the record, probably I’m supposed to tie your hands and capture you and call you a rogue sorcerer and all that business. But do I look like I’ve got the energy for that? Conclave’s dead and gone, anyhow.”
Oriana’s stomach churned. She had no love loss for the Conclave, but if Craw was truthful—far from a guarantee—then that meant the giants and demons weren’t of the Conclave’s creation. That was the far more troubling possibility of these creatures’ existences.
“Ah, I suppose there’s a chance they’re still kickin’ about,” Craw said, as if discerning concern from Oriana’s flat expression. Maybe she didn’t hide her emotions as well as she thought. “But Baelous is overrun with demons. Conclave’s weak, more fragile than my hip, which I shattered ten years ago. They did well, though, procuring these mutations. Got ’em from a gentleman here on Avestas.”
“Wh—”
“Don’t ask me who, when, what, why—I don’t know. Didn’t care to ask. It was my job to find out what each vial here did. Conclave called me the Curator of Mutations.”
Horace paced the perimeter of the council chambers, pausing by the windows. “The Conclave knew about these demons and colossi prior to their arrival, then.” He laid a hand on the sill, staring into the foggy miasma of muddled light coming through the frosted panes.
“Don’t know,” Craw said, rolling a glass vial in his shaky fingers. “I learned about ’em a handful of months ago.”
“That’s before we knew,” Rol put in. “You got the vials before that, you told me.”
“Several months before that. I started the experimentations right away.” He cringed in memory. “No one ever called me a torturer to my face, but I heard the whispers. Those experiments served a good purpose, though. If we can use these damned mutations to preserve… well, somethin’ of this world.”
Oriana sighed. She picked up a random vial, shook the clear liquid inside. It looked like water. “All right. Tell me what they do.”
“Fire-IM,” Craw said, pinching the aforementioned vial. “Various mutations are marked IM and ET. The IM stands for immediate, ET eternal. This one here’ll give you the power of the primal elemental of fire.”
“Like an elementalist,” Oriana mused.
Craw seesawed his head from one shoulder to the other. “Yaw and naw. The eternal mutations, they more or less open your mind so you can venture into the realm of fire. It’s a lengthy process, though, learning how to manipulate an element from one realm to another. You know that as well as any.”
Oriana glanced at Lord Ayres, who listened intently. She wondered what he thought of her, knowing she was a sinful woman who dabbled in reprehensible wickedness.
“The immediate mutations,” Craw continued, “bypass the need for all those years us sorcerers spent learnin’ how to meditate, calm our thoughts, idle our senses. Comes at a cost, though. Best way I can explain is this.” He held the Fire-IM mutation by its corked top and rounded base. “This mutation here, it’s as if it contains fabrics of the primal realm of fire itself. The mutated can tap into the elemental power of fire just as he can summon a breath. He can cause great destruction in a short period of time.
“Sadly for him, all he has is a short period of time. The longest any subject of my experiment lasted after being injected with a full dose was ninety-four seconds. Half a dose was largely ineffective, but nonetheless resulted in death within three minutes.”
Horace approached the table. “How did they die?”
Craw mimed an explosion. “Combustion.”
“They catch fire?” Oriana asked.
“From the inside out,” Craw said.
Oriana bowed her head against the knuckles of her thumbs. “We can’t use those mutations, then.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Craw told her. “Got demons comin’ from one side, colossi from the other. Now, I don’t know much about the geography of Avestas, but I’d wager you can’t mobilize all four corners of this land in less than, er, let’s say two weeks. You might be able to stretch it to three.”
Lord Ayres tugged at his huge beard, alternating between hands as if braiding the thing. “Looks to me as though you’ve a few dozen of those mutations.”
“Several dozen,” Craw corrected. “Sixty-two.”
“Is that so? I’ve not a wealth of knowledge about sorcery, it being a sin and all. But I do know you told her that twenty-five sorcerers—did you call them your sorcerers, Oriana? It’s of no matter, I suppose. Point is, you told her that twenty-five of those sinners would hardly be enough. Does sixty-two make much of a difference?”
Rol nodded. “He’s got a point.”
“Bah, he’s not got nothin’,” Craw said. The old man shifted uneasily in his chair, grimacing as if his ribs were poking into his belly and intestines. “Your pour this mutation into a nice hot pot, get a good rolling boil going—it’ll be in the very air the people breathe.”
“I’m not subjecting my people to mass death,” Oriana said.
Craw scoffed. “Is that right, missy? Then what would you call havin’ a stampede of demons comin’ through? Or thousands of colossi storming your walls? It’d be like the mountains themselves collapsing onto this kingdom. You’ve got blood on your hands one way or another.”
Rol rapped a finger against the table. “He’s got a point.”
Oriana glared at him. “Is that all you say?”
He shrugged. “I tell it as it is, for worse or better. We’re sandwiched in, Ori. We’re like the… the stuffing of a cake. And”—he looked into the fine grains of the table, lost in his own thoughts—“and we’re being, uh, picked up and hefted into a massive maw. And the top teeth are demons and the bottom are colossi, and—”
“Rol,” Oriana said, touching his arm, “I get it.” She reached for her quill, twirled it in the inkwell thoughtfully. “What other mutations are there?”
Craw told her of mutations that would grant one the strength to shift the flow of rivers, and mutations that would allow the engineering of great works at impossible speeds—the crafting immense trebuchets never before seen, walls built of solid granite blocks, a hundred feet high.
He spoke of mutations that allowed the birth of death into this world, ones that would coat the soil in plague and rain from the sky toxic rain.
“Organization,” Horace said, eschewing his long silence, “is paramount. An entire populace being gifted the power to shoot fire from their fingertips is of little use if they lack structure, and is worthless entirely if they’re unwilling.”
Rol rubbed his tired eyes. “Not many people’ll be willing to burst into flames, I’d wager.”
“You underestimate the draw of gold,” Lord Ayres said. “Promise a man wealth for his family forevermore and you’ll have a willing participant.”
“And you,” Rol said unmoved, “underestimate the number of selfless men. Or stupid ones. Yeah, I’d call ’em stupid.”
Lord Ayres squinted,
the crow’s-feet around his eyes bunching up tight. “Sacrificing yourself for mankind is stupid?”
Rol yawned. He folded his hands over his belly and leaned back, closing his eyes. “Mankind treated me like a pile of freshly dropped dogshit for most of my life. Thanking it by offering my life seems stupid, but what do I know? I’m a sellsword, not some lord who’s gotten all he’s wanted out of this world.”
Lord Ayres chuckled. “Wouldn’t sacrifice yourself for anyone?”
“Enough,” Oriana said, cutting Rol off before he had the chance to answer. “You’re both right. We can entice some with fortune for their families, but some isn’t enough. We’ll need to do better if we’re to recruit an army capable of saving this world.”
“I’ll broach the subject with Jameson,” Horace said. “You’ll find no equal to a military man when it comes to his power of persuasion.”
Oriana pinched her quill, freeing it from the inkwell. “Tell him to call Haeglin’s banners, as well.”
“Under the pretense of war with demons and giants?” Horace said.
“I don’t expect every vassal to answer. I’d imagine most won’t. But some—” Oriana paused as Lord Ayres stood.
“If I may,” he said. “Consider leaving your bannermen where they are. They’ll serve as redoubts for this kingdom. Small and insignificant defenses on their own, but together they’ll result in casualties for these misbegotten creatures invading our lands.”
Ink dripped from Oriana’s quill, splashing into and filling a spiderlike gouge on the table. She had known from the beginning that she could not change the world without first renewing it. That called for blood to be spilled, the death of any who opposed her and fought to retain the traditions of slavery and peasantry, of herding the poor and gifting freedom only to those who had been born with the right surname.
That was why she had her dragons. Her sorcerers. Her army that none would conquer. But until now, she hadn’t played the arbiter of life and death. Until now, she hadn’t considered that maybe someone in the past had come along and looked to change the way things were. But then they’d fully understood the cost. The immense, genocidal cost, and the fact that, even if you purged all but a dozen of the most intelligent, selfless souls, there was still no assurance that life wouldn’t simply return to the sad state of affairs that had imprisoned it before.
Reign of Gods (Sorcery and Sin Book 2) Page 33