by David Hair
However, there was still no way for the Lost Legions to move out of the trap. Keshi cavalry hemmed them into their fortified position, which the men had started calling Riverdown. The river itself remained impassable, and there were Kirkegarde patrols on the far bank. They’d sent scouts north and south seeking a crossing place, to no avail, so all they could do was dig deeper, labouring night and day to prepare for the inevitable.
The Octen moon became a sliver and vanished, and the Keshi finally marched. As Noveleve dawned, Seth and his magi beheld a plain that was now thick with the enemy as far as the eye could see.
The men stayed calm, he noted with pride. All along the line, they watched the enemy force growing, marching out of the haze in bewildering numbers. But these were men who’d escaped Shaliyah and Ardijah, where they’d believed themselves doomed. There was fear, certainly, but there was faith too, that someone or something would get them out of this.
That someone being me, he reflected, troubled by their expectations.
If he strained his eyes, he could see the richly dressed cluster of Keshi nobility gathered about the throne of Salim, Sultan of Kesh. Perhaps Latif was among them, wondering what would happen here. He wondered too.
The one thing that won’t happen is surrender.
9
Breaking the Code
Daemonic Armies
Summoning and controlling even one daemon can be deadly dangerous, yet there have been many attempts by ambitious Wizards to summons armies of them. All such attempts have been failures, for a variety of logistical reasons. For a start, unless the host-body is a mage, the daemon’s powers are limited and the host is rapidly burned out. No mage would willingly allow a daemon possession of his body and mind. Secondly, some form of mass-control is required, and the power and intellect required exceeds the power of even an Ascendant. And, of course, the possession spell itself is banned under the Gnostic Accords, and rightly so.
BROTHER JACOBUS, SACRED HEART ARCANUM, 802
The Valley of Tombs, Gatioch, on the continent of Antiopia
Zulqeda (Noveleve) 929
17th month of the Moontide
‘Adamus, your fortitude really is incredible.’ Malevorn Andevarion was amazed that the broken wreck of a man on the wooden frame still breathed, let alone resisted. ‘But it’s useless, my Lord Crozier.’
He’d thought the clergyman would crumble inside an hour. He’d always despised him as an effeminate frocio, but Adamus had surprised him. Perhaps if it had been Raine Caladryn asking the questions, she might have carved his mind open in no time, but neither he nor Hessaz, who was helping him, were specialists in torture, and he was beginning to worry that the man would die unbroken.
‘Look at you,’ he whispered in what was left of Adamus’ ear. ‘Broken fingers and toes, broken face. Scalped. Shattered knees. Castrated. Branded. Blinded. What is the point any more? You will never have a life, if even by some miracle Kore Himself reached down and took you in his hands. Stop resisting, Adamus. Give up.’
The crozier didn’t dignify that with any kind of reaction; for the past three weeks he’d somehow shut himself inside his own head and not come out. The physical tortures obviously reached him on one level, for he still screamed like a child, but his mind remained a tiny ball of shielded consciousness Malevorn couldn’t worm a way inside, keeping his secrets inviolate, unreachable.
If Malevorn couldn’t break Adamus, then his own fate would be like this: more Inquisitors would be sent, and eventually they would find him. He stared at the man, lashed to an X-shape of wooden beams, naked and ruined, and tried to think what else could be done that might reach him. Perhaps . . .
He turned to Hessaz. ‘Cut his eyelids off.’
The Lokistani woman shuddered. ‘Do it yourself, hero.’ She backed away, her eyes full of loathing. ‘I’ve had enough of you, Inquisitor. And enough of this.’
‘Then go! And don’t think to share in the rewards, Souldrinker. There’ll be no “salvation” for you!’
She stopped and snarled, ‘I like myself fine as I am.’ She stalked out of the foetid chamber and Malevorn slumped into a chair and cradled his head in his hands. Damn this all the way to Hel.
This chamber, beneath one of the monuments in the Valley of Tombs, might have been made for the purpose, for it had manacles on the walls and this giant cross-beam had clearly been made to hold a man captive. Xymoch said that the God-Kings of Gatti used to wall up servants in their tombs with them. While the reptile-shifters feasted and debauched, and Huriya hunched over her divining bowls, it had been left to him and Hessaz to try and unlock Adamus’ mind, but all he had learned was that he wasn’t a torturer, for all his other sins.
He decided nothing further could be gained tonight, forced food and water down the crozier’s throat, then sought a bottle of some liquor Xymoch’s people brewed and his own quarters. He had taken a room far from the others, sick of the sight of these animals in human form. These days he drank himself into a stupor every night, to avoid dreaming of everything he’d done to Adamus. He’d stopped shaving, washing, caring; day and night meant nothing; he was lost in these lightless catacombs.
He was finishing the last swallow of a tasteless liquor that kicked like a mule when he realised that Huriya was leaning against the door frame. Unusually, she was clad in a bekira-shroud that kept her lush curves hidden.
‘What do you want?’ he slurred.
She sashayed into her room, sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose, but sat anyway. ‘Hessaz says you’ve failed. And that she won’t work with you again.’
‘Cowardly bitch! She hasn’t got the stomach for it.’
‘She’s no coward. Regardless, she wants no further part of the torture.’
‘Then damn her. She misses out, if we get what we need.’ Which was an increasingly forlorn hope. His bottle was somehow empty, so he hurled it into the shattered pile of empties in the corner.
Huriya stood. ‘Come to me when you’re sober: I’ll show you how to break the good crozier.’
‘You?’ He scowled, knowing he sounded defeated. ‘He’s not going to break, Huriya. I don’t have the skill. If I inflict any more damage on him he’ll die and we’ll have lost.’
‘I know a way, “Heart of my Heart”,’ she told him. ‘Tomorrow.’
*
Huriya stopped at the door of the crozier’s cell. ‘Wait here, and keep everyone else out,’ she told Malevorn before entering and closed the door firmly behind her.
Of course he watched through the keyhole, but what he saw wasn’t at all what he had expected. Huriya took the man down from the frame and laid him on a pallet. First she washed him, then she began to undo all that Hessaz and Malevorn had wrought upon him, repairing his hands and feet, working on those parts which hurt the most.
What he couldn’t work out was what she thought to achieve: did she intend to betray him by allying herself with the crozier? It seemed inconceivable, but then, if she could enslave the man, where would that leave him? Several times he almost burst in, demanding answers, but he held back: the room was a dead end and there was no escape, except through him.
He pulled out the straightsword he’d taken from Artus LeBlanc’s corpse and his whetstone and began to sharpen it, to while away the hours.
By the following dawn Huriya had used her Ascendant-strength gnosis to set regeneration in effect, re-growing the crozier’s amputated fingers and toes, and even his genitals. She’d also begun to revive him. He was still clearly drained, but Malevorn could sense him regaining consciousness. When he opened his eyes to find himself clean and naked on freshly laundered sheets, whole, or nearly so, he clearly thought himself dreaming. He stared at his hands, then down his body, and began to weep, the most piteous sobbing Malevorn had ever heard in his life.
When at last he ceased to cry, his eyes filled with a dawning realisation that perhaps this nightmare ordeal might end in something other than total extinction. When he gazed at Huriya now he clearly saw so
meone sent from on high to save him.
Malevorn extended his senses to listen and her words, a constant flow of soothing and comfort, became discernible:
Does she mean to betray us all? She and the crozier together . . . they wouldn’t need the rest of us . . .
He loosened his sword and kindled his wards and as he did, Huriya’s eyes flickered to the keyhole.
She’s Ascendant, but she’s not a fighter. She panics under direct attack . . . .
‘Malevorn,’ she called. She gestured, and the door swung open. He came to his feet in one flowing motion, baring his sword. She looked at it with some amusement, but Adamus didn’t even notice; his tear-stained face saw only her.
‘Malevorn, look: I have wiped the canvas clean.’ She threw a look of pure cruelty at Adamus. ‘I suppose you’re just going to have to do it all again.’
Malevorn got it at last. Sweet Kore, she’s cruel as a Lantric nymph! His eyes went to Adamus’ face and he made himself smile with all the relish he could, to make Adamus believe that he was eager to go through the same ghastly ordeal again.
The clergyman broke, before his eyes. He didn’t scream or beg, but something inside snapped: the thin thread that Huriya had given him, to which he’d clung and made into the central thread of his resistance. His face collapsed; he aged twenty years in a moment, his skin turned ashen and his eyes emptied.
She saw it too. She bent over him and did something with the gnosis that filled the crozier’s eyes with grey light. She didn’t even bother to bind Adamus again, simply turned her back and walked towards Malevorn. ‘They do say that it’s hope that kills you,’ she murmured.
Sweet Kore! Her face mirrored his – a certain sickness at what had been done, but countered by the need that drove those acts. That surprised him, seeing vulnerability where he’d been accustomed to worldly callousness. She was obviously far more complex than he really understood. He’d heard that Souldrinkers only took power, not identities from their victims, but that wasn’t what he sensed in Huriya. What eighteen-year-old girl behaved as she did? The Keshi girl’s identity seemed to be morphing into someone else before his eyes.
How many ancient lives are inside her head? Who’s in control? Whose idea was it that broke Adamus: Huriya’s, or some other entity? Who is she now?
They stared at each other for a long time before he recalled their purpose here. ‘Huriya, we’ve got a potion to brew, and we have to control Xymoch’s clan while we do it. We still need each other, Heart of my Heart.’
‘We do indeed, Malevorn Andevarion.’
For a while . . .
Very tentatively, he reached out a hand to her and she let him place it on her arm. ‘There’s a side-effect of that heart-spell,’ he told her. ‘Over time, our moods begin to align. You might have already noticed.’
She looked at him thoughtfully, searching his face. ‘Only a mated pair may challenge for a position of rank in Dokken society. If we are to control Xymoch’s pack, we must rule it.’ She pushed her chest out. ‘Are you prepared to dirty yourself with a mudskin, Inquisitor?’
‘I would do anything for the power we will gain from the Scytale.’
‘So would I,’ she replied, looking at him appraisingly. ‘So why don’t you come to my chamber tonight?’
*
Malevorn was surprised to discover that mudskin girls weren’t so different after all, at least, not when you pinned them down and filled them. There was the same sweet slickness and heat, the same excruciating pleasure when you came. It was far from love, or even liking, but the desire wasn’t feigned.
The rest took time. They gleaned the ingredients and workings of the Scytale from the shattered thing that had once been Adamus Crozier, then challenged Xymoch and his savage wife. Naturally they triumphed: while Huriya gripped his brain, Malevorn gutted Xymoch; moments later they made an example of his mate. His people were quick to pledge allegiance after that.
Now they knew what they needed, they sent men out to the markets of the nearby towns to purchase the chemicals and herbs. Adamus even helped them brew the first batch.
Octen was gone and Noveleve begun. The desert was cooling at night, although the daytime heat was still suffocating. They dwelled in the cool rooms below the earth, sleeping through the day time and working at night. And as the Scytale revealed its secrets, Malevorn traced out the complicated formulae with growing excitement.
Finally, as the New Moon waxed and fattened, they were ready for the New Ascension.
10
Test of Faith
Pallas
Pallas was originally a village called Pilum, or Spear, where the Siber River met the mighty Bruin, in the Rimoni province of Turium. It was important only for the legion town on the north bank, that same legion destroyed by the Ascendants in 380. But after the destruction of Rym, Pilum became the new base for the Magi. It was renamed ‘Pallas’ after a Lantric deity of Learning and became the seat of a new empire. The city now covers more than one hundred square miles, has a population of two million, and is the richest city in Yuros, if not all of Urte. And this is just the beginning of what the Ascendancy set in motion.
ORDO COSTRUO COLLEGIATE, PONTUS
Mandira Khojana, Lokistan, on the continent of Antiopia
Zulqeda (Noveleve) 929
17th month of the Moontide
Alaron and Ramita sat side by side behind a desk, facing a shaven-headed acolyte in his crimson robes. The notes Alaron had taken five months earlier were spread across the table before him. The acolyte’s name was Gateem, and he looked overwhelmed.
It had taken several goes, with added explanations from Master Puravai, but the young man finally understood what Alaron and Ramita were offering him: he could become a mage.
Gateem raised his troubled face and asked Puravai, ‘Would I still be reborn to the Path of Light?’
This was proving a common question: Zain monks followed the Lakh Path of Light, the cycle of life, death and rebirth; the goal in each life was to attain something they called ‘moksha’ – release from the cycle into a kind of paradise. Though the Zains did not believe in the Omali gods – to them, gods represented ideas and were not real beings – they shared belief in the Path towards wisdom and spiritual clarity.
Master Puravai answered thoughtfully and respectfully, ‘Gateem, none who walk the Path of Light have ever been given such a choice. However, there have been times when a Zain monk has been put in a position of authority in society. The wisdom of the masters on that matter is that power amplifies the temptations we face, and that involvement in society complicates our choices, but neither of these things alters the nature of moksha.’
Gateem wrung his hands uncomfortably. ‘Master, I don’t understand.’
‘These are indeed difficult concepts,’ Puravai said sympathetically. ‘Let me remind you of a tale of Zain. Long ago, when he was a lowly wanderer, there were many who mocked him. In one village there was a man called Mulat who struck the Master, leaving his nose broken, and drove him from his village. Some years later Master Zain returned to that village at the head of many disciples, and the village welcomed him and asked him to arbitrate on their disputes. One of the disputes involved Mulat, the man who had abused him. Do you recall what the Master did?’
Gateem nodded dutifully. ‘He heard the case fairly and deemed that Mulat was in the right, ignoring his own previous encounter with the man.’
‘And the lesson?’
‘That power does not change the nature of what is right or wrong,’ Gateem replied quickly, clearly a rote answer.
‘Indeed. But consider also that the Master had been placed into a position of power: he was now judging right and wrong in others, and his decisions would be affecting the rest of their lives. Still he chose justice over personal satisfaction.’
‘So if I do this, you are warning me that I will face harder choices that will place greater pressure upon me.’
‘Yes: harder, more complex, and more ambiguous. The Path of Light remains, but it can be harder to see amidst the confusion and enormity of life. Power is a great responsibility that few have the strength to deal with.’
‘Then I truly would be endangering my soul?’
‘Gateem, it is written that to attain moksha, we must face our fears. One must look into the Darkness to understand the Light. A test not taken can never be overcome.’
Alaron looked sideways at Ramita and stifled a yawn. They’d been conducting these private interviews all day, giving each of those for whom they had an individual recipe for the ambrosia a chance to ask their questions, and express their doubts. Master Puravai had given no guidance to the candidates beyond helping them to look into their own hearts, and Alaron still couldn’t tell if any or all of the novices were willing.
How can anyone raised in a monastery dedicated to nonviolence and self-realisation be ready for this? I was raised knowing one day I’d have the gnosis, and I barely knew how to cope.
Gateem had no more questions, and was eager to go, no doubt to seek out the other candidates, who had gathered in one of the upper courtyards. While each young man would make his own choice, peer pressure was obviously going to be a factor. The opinion-leaders would be influential. Gateem was one such, for he was popular. Yash too, for his skill with the staff and knowledge of the outside world. Well-educated Aprek, worldly Felakan and aggressive Kedak were the others: how they chose would be crucial.
As the young novice left, Ramita let out a tired sigh. ‘Yes, it has been a long day,’ Puravai agreed, getting to his feet and flowing into a few stretches, his joints popping a little. ‘Gateem was the last candidate of thirty-eight. Four full monks and thirty-four novices: more than half of our trainees.’ He looked intently at Alaron. ‘You realise that you will cost this monastery many of its future brethren, should they all accept.’