Moontide 04 - Ascendant's Rite

by David Hair

  ‘Hear us, Pater Sol!’ the drui cried. ‘We bring you our king!’

  The bier was draped in purple cloth and festooned with strings of flowers and Jhafi prayer beads, burying the body lying upon it until he could barely be seen. Both the funerary bed and the knights who had borne it were coated in the brightly coloured powders that the Amteh worshippers had thrown into the air as it passed, light to drive away darkness, a garish and defiant blaze of colour railing against the gloom and sorrow. But nothing could dispel the anger that was seething through the masses. ‘Death to the Invader!’ they had been calling, in Jhafi and in Rimoni. ‘Death to the Infidel!’

  The Amteh rites had been performed at midday under the burning sun, where dark forces would not tread and afreet could not find a way into the bodies of the dead. That had been a turmoil for Cera, to see them all laid out so. Then came the burning of the Jhafi dead; dear Borsa, her nurse, slaughtered by the assassin when she tried to protect her youngest and dearest charge. Her hugs and kisses had accompanied the Nesti children through all their lives, and Cera couldn’t imagine life without her. And Drus, that poor maid, ripped from life before she’d really begun to live it.

  The sun kissed the rooftops. It was time to burn and bury her little brother.

  ‘Hear us, Mater Lune!’ the drui called. ‘We bring you our king!’

  The knights lifted the bier once more. They had born it through the streets of Forensa all day, timing their arrival at the Nesti tombs for an hour before sunset. The king would go into the earth as the sun left the sky.

  ‘Receive your son, Timori Rex!’

  Someone tugged on her sleeve: Pita Rosco, his chubby, normally cheerful face ash-stained and solemn, offered his arm. She stood shakily and clung to him as she followed the bier down the aisle towards the gaping mouth of the crypt. Each step was harder than the last as faces loomed out of the crowd; it felt like a nightmare procession, as if she had crossed from the land of the living, and only the dead were here in the chapel to welcome Timori to the grave.

  The sun vanished and while the knights carried Timori into the earth, the Godspeakers lit the pyre, burning the king in effigy so he would have both Amteh cremation and Sollan burial.

  Ritual demanded that she drop to her knees and scream in grief and loss, but she found she had already done so. Her right hand, poulticed and wrapped in bandages so thick it looked like she had no hand at all, pounded the earth and she came to herself at last in the echo of that scream, staring about at the sea of awestruck, silent faces.

  She came to her feet, as for once in her life, her emotions snapped the control of her rational mind. Her voice cracked as she cried to the skies, ‘Gurvon Gyle – I know your agents are listening! So hear this! I am the last of the Nesti, the family you have destroyed for your own pleasure! I am coming to destroy you! Hear me! I am coming to kill you!’

  *

  Elena didn’t go to the funerals – she told herself the living needed her too much. Though others among the Ordo Costruo could have tended Kazim during the ceremony, she couldn’t bear to see all that grief. She had enough of her own.

  The sounds were inescapable, pouring through the windows from the courtyards and plazas, vibrating up through the timbers and stones permeating the smoke-reek from the scorched rooms on the upper storey. The wailing of tens of thousands of Jhafi women and their menfolk’s angry shouting, accompanied by the rattling of spears on shields, imploring Ahm to strike down the Rondian invaders; the low funerary chants of the Rimoni and the wailing of the Godsingers in the towers of the Doms-al’Ahm, and the indignant shrieking of the crows, driven from their roosts by the clamour. None of it could drown out the voice of guilt inside her, though.

  My negligence killed them.

  It didn’t matter that she’d known the risks, or that her task was all but impossible anyway. It wasn’t hard to infiltrate a large group of people, not for someone as talented as Rutt Sordell or Mayten Drexel – and especially combined. The part of her that had once been just like them understood the nuances of the attack: the infiltration that had been required, the delicate balance between preparation and improvisation, the identification of weaknesses and the deadly ruthlessness of exploiting them. She doubted Sordell had ever intended to escape; there had been no obvious contingency plans. He was there to kill until he was stopped.

  A hideaway like that little warding circle under the bed could only hold so long at any rate, especially against so powerful a mage, but I’d never thought of smoke . . . Poor little Timori must have forgotten the escape-word in his panic . . .

  She clutched at the chair-arm and tried to shift her left leg, which had been fixed straight; she couldn’t bend it. The convalescence would be months, Clematia had said, and unless she could free up her own gnosis to guide the internal workings of her body, she’d likely never be able to do more than limp again.

  But that wasn’t even registering as one of her worst fears at the moment.

  It was Kazim’s plight that was destroying her. He was barely alive. The Ordo Costruo magi had saved one lung and were using a bellows powered by captured kinetic-gnosis to keep his body oxygenated, but his brain had been shutting down when they got to him and he still hadn’t awakened. Their link had been broken, and she hadn’t been able to re-establish it. Her own gnosis was a powder-puff as a consequence, her former powers reduced to almost nothing; she could barely shield a thrown stone.

  And Kazim wasn’t her only problem: without Timori, Cera’s reign as regent was over. Theo Vernio-Nesti was now head-of-family, and custom demanded that he be called to court from his home in the northernmost Rift Fort, which was many days’ travel away. Moreover, Theo’s family were ignorant, provincial fools, banished by Olfuss Nesti because they couldn’t be trusted.

  Even so, messengers were riding to summon them to the court.

  Worse, Stefan di Aranio had sent a messenger – with suspicious alacrity – demanding the election of a new king immediately; the Lord of Riban had a large body of support and obviously fancied his chances. She suspected that Stefan had lost his nerve for dealing with Gurvon; he would surely want them to sue for peace.

  Well done, Gurvon. You hit us right where it hurts.

  She closed her eyes, took Kazim’s cool, limp hand and squeezed. It had taken all Clematia’s skill to keep him from the grave, and even now there was no certainty he would even wake, let alone recover. Healing-gnosis was far from perfect, and the internal workings of the body were still largely a mystery, even to the magi.

  In the neighbouring bed, Tarita slept on. She too was still paralysed, her numbed suffering as terrible in its way as Kazim’s.

  I’ve failed them all . . .

  The duty healer, a gloomy young Ordo Costruo mage called Perdionus touched her shoulder. He was not yet thirty, but his lank hair was already greying. ‘Magister Anborn,’ he said respectfully, ‘you should be resting.

  She knew what he was inferring – it was difficult to keep medical secrets from healer-magi. It was her bleeding week, and there had been nothing. She was scared that her body was now failing to ovulate, that she’d lost any chance for a child, waited too long. But perhaps, perhaps . . .

  ‘We will have revenge for this,’ he added fervently.

  Vengeance. Hatred. Retribution. Yes, oh yes! She stroked her stomach and whispered, ‘I pray so.’

  *

  The Godspeaker concluded the Rite of Family and the women lowered their keffis. Cera saw the men wince at their faces; she knew what they were seeing, for she’d been staring into her own mirror as she rehearsed all the things she needed to say today.

  She’d washed the ritual ash away that morning in the chapel below, three days after the funeral, as custom required. Her eyes were lined with thick kohl, black lines that made her look ghoulish. Her eyes were vividly bloodshot, like bleeding sores. Her hair was still a close-cropped mess – she’d refused to have it tidied since the funerals; such trivialities could wait – and anyway, her moth
er’s crowning circlet tamed the worst of it. Her right hand was still wrapped up and she couldn’t use it.

  Beside her, Elena looked just as bad. Her blonde hair had also been hacked short, and she could barely walk, even with a stick and her kinetic-gnosis. Whenever she forgot herself, her eyes were murderous. She looked about as far from a mother-to-be as conceivable.

  Around the table the Regency Council were gathered. The official mourning period was over and the men were arraigned in their usual garb, but Cera knew she’d be mourning for the rest of her life.

  Pita Rosco was moist-eyed, visibly worried for her. Luigi Ginovisi looked downcast and bitter. Piero Inveglio was dignified and caring. Justiano di Kestria had his jaw set grimly. And there was a scattering of other nobles surrounding Stefan di Aranio who had arrived the previous day like a prince come to claim the throne, and he’d brought Marid Tamadhi with him. As the most senior Riban Jhafi, Marid was entitled to vote on matters of succession, and he seemed friendly to Aranio.

  Also present were Rene Cardien and Odessa D’Ark, representing the Ordo Costruo. They were a comforting presence, but they had no legal status here.

  ‘I am the last of the Nesti,’ Cera said at last, breaking the silence. ‘My father Olfuss was murdered by Gurvon Gyle. My mother Fadah was murdered by Samir, an agent of Gurvon Gyle. My elder brother Gremio died in what I must now believe was an accident contrived by Gurvon Gyle. My sister Solinde was murdered by an agent of Gurvon Gyle. And now my brother, Timori, is dead’ – she grabbed the table for support and forced herself to go on – ‘murdered by an agent of Gurvon Gyle.’

  Snarls rippled around the room.

  ‘There is a plague on my House and its name is Gurvon Gyle.’ She balled her left fist. ‘I wish to cure this plague. He must cease to be! He must suffer, and he must die!’

  She realised she was shouting and clamped her jaw shut, but that didn’t stop the room from echoing to her anguish. Breathe. Just breathe.

  She put her hand on Elena’s and gripped it, made sure they saw. They need to understand that I don’t blame Ella.

  She knew what the other woman was going through, the recriminations and self-flagellation, and she wasn’t having it. It’s not your fault, Elena, and I refuse to let you believe it is. Our enemies move like ghosts and you can’t be everywhere. We cannot live in prison cells. The fault lies with our enemies. We need you. She hoped that maybe, maybe, on some level, Elena understood that.

  ‘We will march on Brochena,’ she said firmly. ‘We will meet this enemy in battle and overcome: this I believe with all my heart. And I believe in you people gathered here: you are the people who will make it happen.’

  Then the moment she’d feared happened. Stefan di Aranio raised a hand. ‘We all sympathise with Signora Nesti’s loss, obviously – we all have hearts. We all have families of our own. But we cannot blind ourselves to the facts.’ He looked around the room, then fixed Cera with his narrowed eyes. ‘We have no legitimate ruler.’

  ‘This is no place for ambition,’ Pita Rosco snapped, while Piero Inveglio made a Rimoni gesture of insult in the Lord of Riban’s face.

  ‘This is not ambition! You demand that we march to war for you! Who are you any more? The widow of our dead enemy, that’s who! You don’t outrank us any more, Cera Nesti! You don’t even belong in this room, a fact I’m sure you’d be swift to point out were it someone else!’

  Cera swallowed her anger. This was all so distressingly predictable – and yet, technically, Aranio was right. Her mother’s sister’s son, Theo Vernio-Nesti, was now the senior family member of her House – even though he’d been more or less banished by her father, he was now riding from the Rift Fort to take her position. And Timori was dead: Aranio was within his rights to demand the election of a new king.

  But it couldn’t happen now.

  ‘My Lord of Riban, the lex regalus, the laws for the election of a new king when the ruling line fails, states that all of the Ruling House must be represented for a vote to be taken. I see only Riban here, and Forensa, and the lesser heirs of Loctis’ – she nodded to Justiano – ‘so you cannot call for a vote on the kingship now.’

  Stefan di Aranio clearly knew this; he waved a hand dismissively. ‘Under the lex regalus, there are also laws permitting the election of an Autarch, a dictator who rules in emergency until royal elections can be held. This role can be anyone chosen by a majority vote of any Ruling Houses present.’

  ‘I know that too,’ Cera replied, ‘and I am more than happy for you to take that vote.’ She reached down and plucked a copy of the lex regalus from the table, opened it to the marked point and read, ‘“Let the electors settle upon a single Autarch, with full kingly authority, for the period of ninety days. His eligibility is not limited by birth or any other quality, as the nature of the emergency which led to the loss of the king cannot be anticipated.”’ She tapped the key phrase and repeated, ‘Not limited by birth or any other quality.’

  Stefan stared at her as he realised what she was saying. ‘The Autarch can only be a man, Lady. It says “He”, as you’ve just read.’

  ‘The term “He” in this context is genderless: I have the required legal opinion on that point from the Grey Crows.’ She gestured to the bureaucrats waiting beside the walls.

  ‘One of your paid toadies,’ Aranio sneered.

  ‘A man loyal to Don Perdonello in Brochena,’ Cera countered, while the official went puce. Insulting the integrity of any Grey Crow was never a good idea – every ruler inevitably leaned on them for support at times.

  Aranio scowled, realising his misstep, then spun back to the table. ‘An Autarch must be able to deal with the emergency at hand! We face battle! Can you lead an army, girl? Can you swing a sword?’

  ‘I think none will deny that I have the loyalty of our fighting men,’ she countered, earning nods from Justiano di Kestria, Saarif Jelmud and others who’d fought at Brochena. ‘And I was in the front lines beside the canals of my city as the Harkun poured through the breach, while you cowered in Riban, my Lord!’

  Aranio turned white. ‘I’d challenge you for that calumny, were you not a weakling girl!’

  ‘Then try me,’ Elena rasped. ‘I’m still her champion.’

  He started to retort, then closed his mouth, not looking at the Noros woman. His entourage also found other things to gaze at as silence fell on the room. Then he barked, ‘I nominate myself as Autarch.’

  The rest of the room looked at each other while Cera calculated the odds. Each city had a Ruling House – one Rimoni and one Jhafi – who functioned as electors for the kingship, or in this case, for the role of Autarch. Only the Ruling Houses of Riban, Loctis and Forensa were represented here today, and as Theo Vernio-Nesti was still en route and not formally appointed, she retained the Forensa vote. Aranio’s Jhafi counterpart, Marid Tamadhi, could vote here, but the late Harshal ali-Assam’s family, who would likely have supported her as the Ruling Jhafi House in Forensa, had been coordinating the transfer of the government records into the hinterlands and so weren’t present. Only four of us here can vote, and two of those are likely to support Stefan . . .

  ‘I nominate Justiano di Kestria,’ one of Justiano’s own knights said.

  Cera glanced at Justiano, who wouldn’t quite meet her gaze.

  His elder brother Lorenzo died protecting me and he’s never been satisfied with the explanation. She glanced at Elena. Especially not Elena’s role in his loss . . .

  Pita Rosco responded, ‘I nominate Cera Nesti.’

  Stefan di Aranio grunted sourly, but the Grey Crows had given their opinion and the nomination stood. ‘Anyone else?’ he asked coldly. No other hands were raised. ‘Then shall we?’

  There was a delay while the Crows produced the four voting tokens and the voting plates, silver platters for receiving the tokens, with the emblems of each house beaten into the metal. The voting tokens were numbered; they were handed out randomly, with the numbers hidden. As soon as they were issued to thos
e four eligible to vote, Stefan Aranio grunted in satisfaction; he held token Number One, and voting first had advantages. He tossed his token into the Aranio platter, then glared around the table.

  Cera’s heart sank as Marid Tamadhi produced the second token; he too voted for Aranio. Already, Stefan could not lose the vote.

  It also meant that whoever had the third token – whether it was she or Justiano – would effectively eliminate the other. Heart beating, she opened her hand as he did.

  She held token three.

  She exhaled, and placed it in her own platter. Justiano’s head dropped – he couldn’t vote for himself without conceding the victory to Aranio – then placed his token reluctantly in Cera’s platter.

  Two each.

  ‘What is the tie-breaker?’ Aranio asked rhetorically; he clearly knew already.

  ‘Combat,’ one of the Grey Crows announced, and Aranio smiled, then his face stiffened as the man continued, ‘However, a champion can be nominated.’

  ‘You mean her?’ Aranio spat, eyeing Elena. ‘She is magi.’

  Elena just stared at him. Her leg might be useless, but both knew there would be only one outcome to such a fight.

  The Crow coughed. ‘If combat is not selected, then the selection is by ordeal.’

  ‘What?’ Aranio grabbed the lex regalus notes that Cera had brought. ‘Where does it say that?’

  ‘Clause thirty-three,’ Cera replied. ‘The candidates must hold burning coals until one concedes.’

  Aranio’s eyes bulged, then he turned pale as Cera started to unwrap her bandaged right hand. It was a ghastly mess of wet tissue and white new skin, and incredibly painful to move. They all knew how she’d got it: holding Rutt Sordell’s scarab in the flames until it perished.