by David Hair
‘They’ve got to be better than whoever Malevorn and Huriya give the ambrosia to, right?’
‘Probably.’ She frowned at him. ‘Tell me more of this Huriya Makani . . . there’s something familiar about her . . . I distantly sensed her gnosis in Teshwallabad, and it had the same taste as an old Souldrinker, Sabele. I sometimes encountered that one’s touch when divining the future.’
The name Sabele meant nothing to Alaron. Then he noticed a small cluster of dark shapes emerging from the haze less than half a mile across the plains. He immediately scryed, and Ramita’s face appeared before his.
Her face looked strained, but she wagged her head in that characteristic Lakh way.
Minutes later he was greeting them in the flesh. Ram Sankar was a bony grey-haired man with a scrawny son leading two pack-mules bearing Ramita’s purchases – not just the ingredients, but new clothes for them all too. Alaron noticed the quizzical expression when he was introduced as ‘Al’Rhon, my rakhi-bhaiya’ – he couldn’t follow the rapid-fire conversation in Lakh that followed, but it was pretty clear the old man didn’t approve.
‘Did anyone notice you both?’ Alaron asked Yash quietly.
The young Zain shook his head, and Alaron knew the monk was streetwise enough to have spotted a tail. He relaxed just a little.
Corinea checked the supplies carefully, making sure they had precisely what was required – errors could be fatal, she warned them. In the end she declared herself satisfied, and the old trader had a final low conversation with Ramita before collecting his son and the mules and setting off back towards the city.
Alaron waited until the trader had gone before asking Ramita what had happened.
Tears ran down her face as she repeated Ram Sankar’s story of the horrific torture and murder of Vikash Nooradin and his family and friends by Huriya and her pack. ‘They were killed because of me,’ she concluded, her eyes bleeding tears.
‘No, Ramita,’ Alaron replied quietly. ‘They were murdered because Malevorn and Huriya are killers. You know that, and you can’t blame yourself.’ He’d been through this anguish when Malevorn’s Inquisitors destroyed a Rimoni camp he’d been sheltering in. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he added, ‘but it’s their deed, not yours.’
His words appeared to reach her. ‘Sivraman will grant us retribution,’ she murmured, then took Dasra from Yash. ‘I’ll hold him while you pack.’ Her voice was still a little unsteady. ‘I think we should go. Better we fly by night rather than risk witnesses.’
The Seeker wasn’t a big skiff and with passengers, gear and goods was heavily weighed down, but there was no help for it. Fortunately, all three magi could use Air-gnosis to keep the craft aloft.
As the windskiff rose into the skies, Ramita stared back toward her home city, tears once again running down her cheeks.
‘You’ll come back, one day,’ Alaron told her, but he wasn’t sure she heard him.
Mandira Khojana, Lokistan, on the continent of Antiopia
Shawwal (Octen) 929
16th month of the Moontide
Corinea and Yash made the return journey to Mandira Khojana far easier; the old woman claimed to have crossed the desert many times, and she certainly knew the shape of the land. And Yash had walked into the mountains to find Mandira Khojana, and knew the landmarks to look for, invaluable knowledge as a week after crossing the Sithardha Desert they found themselves amongst the massive, maze-like peaks of Lokistan. Alaron recalled his first arrival at the monastery: a crash-landing that all but wrecked the Seeker; he wasn’t at all keen to repeat that experience.
The air became thin and frigid, and they shared the sky with massive vultures with ten-foot wingspans that preyed on the mountain goats and kine that nimbly roamed the slopes and sheer valleys below. The knife-edged peaks that constrained their route glistened with ice, forcing them to fly lower, and constantly tack, a wearying task in a badly overloaded vessel with little room to manoeuvre, inside or out.
They were all unwashed, itchy, cold and increasingly irritable. The young men were sharing the aft deck, with the two women at the fore. Alaron and Yash were used to each other, and though they complained half-jokingly about each other’s farting, they got along.
The women were far less amicable. Alaron found it fascinating to watch them, for both were interesting to him, for different reasons. He adored Ramita, of course, the whole diminutive, fierce, self-contained, capable and adaptable being that she was. An ignorant Rondian mage might just see an uneducated peasant, he admitted to himself, but her practical knowledge and insight always amazes me . . . and as for her raw gnostic power . . . Of course, she’d borne twins to not just a pure-blood but an Ascendant, which was unprecedented. Even so, he thought proudly, her gnostic skill’s becoming more intuitive. He grinned to himself as he thought, She’s like a plum: dark and sweet on the outside, with a core that hammers couldn’t crack.
Corinea was another thing entirely.
As the days passed, the woman of legend slowly emerged. That Corinea had been a force of nature, a dancer, a singer. The Kore Church had her strutting about half-naked all the time, flowers tangled in her hair, fornicating with anyone who desired her, faithless, promiscuous and conniving. In the Book of Kore, she was Corineus’ blind spot. Now, watching her, hearing her stories and the gradual revelation of her character, Alaron began to think that whilst the Church might have embellished the stories for their own use, they had been rooted in truth: perhaps she wasn’t the demoness of legend, but it was clear she was far from a saint.
She complained bitterly of the cold and the cramped skiff. She bitched about Ramita’s cooking, Yash’s ignorance and Alaron’s piloting. She moaned about the smell of Dasra’s swaddling and Ramita’s breast milk. Even the even-tempered Yash looked harassed when she started a rant. All in all, Alaron was heartily sick of her by the time they reached inner Lokistan, living legend or not. How Ramita put up with her he didn’t know, because in the fore-deck she bore the brunt of it.
‘A group of emasculated eunuchs hiding from the real world,’ was how Corinea sneeringly dismissed Zain monks. It was their fourth night in the mountains after a trying day riding the fast-shifting winds through the rugged peaks.
‘I don’t think you know anything about it,’ Alaron retorted, tired past caring about manners. At least Yash was away looking for firewood; he might have felt the need to leap to the defence of his order otherwise. Ramita was preparing to cook and he’d been lashing down the sails for the night while, as usual, Corinea waited like a princess for them to set up the camp, doing nothing herself. ‘I’m Arcanum-trained and they can whack the Hel out of me,’ he added.
‘You?’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘You’re slow, skinny and soft. You’d not last five minutes in a real fight.’
‘I’ve fought Inquisitors and Souldrinkers, and I’m still here. You’ve not even been in an Arcanum. So shut your ignorant mouth, your Highness.’
‘Oh, temper!’
You bet. The Anborn line is famous for it. ‘Perhaps you could be useful for once and prepare the meal?’ he suggested with that much sarcasm.
‘Each to what they’re best at, dearie. I’ll do the thinking and leave the labouring to those born to it.’
Alaron picked up a pail and stalked toward her. ‘Why don’t you fetch the water? It’s time you did something, you lazy old biddy.’
‘I don’t think so, shop-boy,’ She scoffed, but her eyes had gone flinty.
He refused to be intimidated. She’s not a demoness from the Book of Kore. She’s just an old strumpet with an attitude problem.
And Ascendant-level gnosis.
He thrust the pail and a bag of food into her lap. ‘Stop being a bitch and do your share for once.’
‘Or what?’
‘Or the deal’s off.’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘Listen, Lillea Sorades. You’ve given us what we need from you, so th
anks and all that. I can make the ambrosia now – maybe not as well as without you, but we’ll manage. So what exactly do we need you for, anyway?’
She blinked, and her voice dropped to a reptilian dry rasp. ‘Boy, you forget yourself.’ Behind that voice came the perception of her gnosis, a reservoir of power deep and wide, dwarfing his tiny pool. Ascendant gnosis.
If I back down now I’m nothing in her eyes . . .
‘No. I remember who you are: some arrogant, preening witch in a book. The Kore are going to love you: you’re going to justify every preconception they’ve got. If you want to stand in front of the world and convince them you’re something other than an entitled bitch, why don’t you stop behaving like one?’
Her eyes went round, her lips pulled back from her teeth and for an instant he really thought that the next moment would see him buried by some bone-crushing spell. He was peripherally aware that Ramita was on her feet, but this was his fight.
She’s primarily Air and Sorcery. The opposite is Earth-gnosis . . . and she’s sitting on a rock . . . He prepared a spell, wondering if it was the last thing he’d ever do.
Corinea let out her breath in a low hiss. ‘I haven’t cooked for decades, boy.’
‘Then it’s time you got some practise.’ He deliberately turned his back and walked away, trying to slow his heartbeat to something less than a gallop.
To his faint surprise, she did what he said, all of it, with far more skill than she’d led them to believe she had. For once she stilled her litany of whining, and as they all went to sleep, he wrapped himself in his blanket with a sense of satisfaction. They all stayed close to the fire, their breath frosting in the night air. Mater Luna was edging toward her full face and shone silver and bright in the darkness.
Sometime in the night, a little bundle of womanhood wriggled against him. Ramita laid her head on his chest, holding Dasra between them, sharing her blanket and heat. ‘You did right,’ she whispered, making him glow.
He inhaled the soft, oily fragrance of her thick black hair. He liked her smells, all spicy and earthy. He murmured and fell asleep again, warmer already.
As distances that would have taken weeks to traverse on foot melted beneath them in hours, Alaron reflected that flying was in some ways the most incredible magic of all the gnostic feats. We travel like gods, he reflected, then reflected that gods probably travelled far more comfortably on their winged steeds and chariots and the like. Lucky sods.
‘We’re here!’ Yash cried aloud, mid-afternoon on their sixth day in the mountains, as a distinctive green slope dotted with red poppies came into view, followed by the buttress of sheer stone, hewn into lines and planes: Mandira Khojana, huge, sprawling – and almost inaccessible. It was wholly manmade too, without any Earth-gnosis.
Alaron grinned at the young monk. ‘You’re home!’
‘This was never really my home,’ Yash muttered. Of all the young acolytes Alaron had befriended here, Yash was the least suited to monastic life. ‘Let’s not stay too long,’ the young acolyte added fervently. He pulled a face and said, not for the first time, ‘I doubt you’ll find many takers for the ambrosia.’
Of course, Alaron thought, even if any of the Zains are willing to drink the ambrosia, I wonder how many will survive the experience? We could be sending many of them to their graves.
But what choice have we got?
*
Alaron and Ramita had hoped their return to Mandira Khojana would be a joyous occasion. They’d been happy here, and it was only a few months since they’d left, believing that by delivering the Scytale – and Ramita herself – to Vizier Hanook was the right path forward. Instead, they’d not just brought down death upon the vizier and his son, and so many others, they’d lost the Scytale.
Nevertheless it was a genuine pleasure to bow before Master Puravai as they stepped from the windskiff onto the courtyard.
‘Brother Longlegs, welcome back.’ The old Zain addressed Alaron gravely. His skull was freshly shaven and his beard plaited. His robes of dark grey were the only sign of his rank. He looked Alaron up and down, then ran his eye over the rest of the group. Yash was still bowing deeply. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘all of you. I see you’ve a tale to tell, so let us go somewhere more private.’
He ignored the curious crowds, the monks and novices in saffron and crimson, and the villagers from settlements further down the valleys who’d all found reason to be in the courtyard as the windskiff descended. Mandira Khojana was the heart of several communities spread over more than thirty miles of rugged terrain, providing spiritual and physical succour for thousands of precarious lives. Although the Order was agnostic about both religions and gnostic powers, the Ordo Costruo had a relationship with this and other Zain monasteries that stretched back hundreds of years.
Master Puravai gestured to a group of novices loitering near the skiff and set them to work unloading the baggage, then he escorted the four of them to the guest suites.
Alaron introduced Corinea as Lily; they’d all agreed that publically identifying Corinea should wait until it was absolutely necessary; there would be shocks enough in their story without adding that to the mix.
‘Lily is an Ordo Costruo mage aiding our quest,’ Alaron told the Master, and if Puravai didn’t seem to believe him, he didn’t say so.
Before dining, and the stressful conversation that would follow, came baths, and they all revelled in the sheer bliss of scrubbing away the grime of the journey in copious quantities of warm, scented water. That the Zains placed great store on cleanliness was a monumental positive in Alaron’s view. He prepared himself for a barrage of questions as he followed Yash to the communal baths, where several dozen novices just happened to have decided they needed to wash too. They all knew he’d gone to Teshwallabad, and he had to fend off many questions in halting Rondian about what he’d seen and done – Yash just ducked his head under the water and ignored his friends. Most of these young men were the very ones Alaron wished to offer the ambrosia. I wonder how they’ll react? he thought. Although that’s assuming Master Puravai even allows them the choice.
And what do I do if he doesn’t?
With that worry added to the pile, he and Yash put on gloriously fresh clothing – crimson acolyte robes had been waiting on their pallets – then headed off for some much-needed food. Ramita and Corinea, also freshly washed and attired in the new clothes Ramita had bought in Baranasi – plain salwar kameez in similar blue-green hues – joined them for a plain but filling meal of curried vegetable and flatbread.
They ate largely in silence, not just because they were nervously awaiting Master Puravai’s summons, but because there was little need to discuss what was to come: Huriya and Malevorn had vanished with the Scytale, inevitably they would use it, and the only chance they had to counter them was to create their own Ascendancy.
‘I’ll do the talking,’ Alaron said as they stood, looking at Corinea. He didn’t want her contempt for the Zains turning Master Puravai against them.
‘I’ll speak as and when I wish to,’ Corinea retorted shortly.
‘Do not undermine us,’ Ramita told her.
‘Don’t tell me what to do.’
Ramita looked at Alaron. ‘You are right. We should do this without her.’
Corinea scoffed. ‘Go ahead, if you think you can brew the ambrosia without killing half of the monks and driving the rest insane. See if I care. I’ll mind your baby.’
The next instant Ramita had whirled upon her, her hand extended with fingers splayed, and pale light flashed. Corinea was lifted from her feet and slammed to the rug. With gnostic sight instantly engaged, Alaron saw lines of force like an extension of Ramita’s right arm wrapped around Corinea’s throat. The old sorceress convulsed helplessly in her grip.
‘Did you threaten my child?’ Ramita demanded, bending over Corinea. Alaron was stunned by her sudden ferocity.
Corinea squeaked, ‘You misunderstood—’
‘Did I?’ Ramita interrupted. �
��I’m through being patient with you, you arrogant kutiyaa! You complain about this, you whine about that. We’re all sorry for your sad story, but if you can’t shut up and help us we’re better off without you—’
Corinea’s eyes bulged as she tried again to push herself from the floor. The veins in her neck went blue as she pushed, her own gnosis gathering behind her, and to Alaron it felt like the air was being sucked from the room. Yash, the only non-mage, was backing away, his face pale.
Then Corinea sagged. ‘All right,’ she choked out. ‘You’ve made your point.’
‘Which is?’
‘That you’re stronger than me.’
‘No. Try again,’ Ramita snapped.
‘That I’m not behaving well,’ Corinea muttered. ‘I’m sorry.’
Ramita straightened and slowly withdrew the energy, all the while holding it ready.
Holy Kore, she just faced down the Queen of Hel . . .
But the old woman on the floor looked nothing like the demoness of legend right now; she was just Lillea, an aged Estellan widow with a bruised throat and aching body, her youth and vitality a distant memory.
‘Get up,’ Ramita told Corinea, not turning her back.
Corinea groaned and got her feet under her, but she had to accept a hand from Alaron to stand. She looked at him from under lowered brows as he did, humiliated. ‘My thanks, lordship,’ she said in a low, resentful voice. ‘I’m so grateful.’
‘Why are you like this?’ he asked tiredly. ‘What have we done to you? Anyone else would have run screaming when you said your name. I don’t understand your attitude: you came to us, remember?’
‘Think, trader’s son,’ she panted. ‘Think what would have been, had Johan not forced my hand. I would have been empress! Johan’s tragic death would have left me, the tragic heiress of his movement, as the first and only Empress of Rondelmar. I should have had EVERYTHING! And now, after lifetimes of hiding, it’s come to this: I’m trailing after a fool, a peasant and a eunuch, hoping a group of emasculated hermits will take up arms against men born to fight and kill. And you say I should be rejoicing to be part of your pitiful venture?’