by Stephen Hunt
‘Don’t be sorry, little highness. I trained you as well as any of us. Stay on that horse with a sword in your hand and you’ll end up the Queen of the Steppes, you see if you don’t.’
‘I tried to find my honour; at least at the start, I did.’ But in the end
I wanted to live too much. For Alexamir’s sake, if not my own. ‘Vandia’s far-called and beyond the horizon,’ said Paetro, gazing out across the endless prairie and the low hills. Tears wet his eyes as well as Cassandra’s. ‘That’s a big sky. Everywhere is different. You live well for me. Hold to the barbarians’ customs here and live well.’ ‘I’m not abandoning you,’ sobbed Duncan.
Cassandra nodded to Paetro and her old bodyguard dragged the Weylander back struggling towards the helo, assisted by a couple of burly guardsmen from the landing force. They forced Duncan inside a transporter and held him there, Paetro standing by its open hatch.
He raised his hand in a weary farewell and the hatch door closed.
One by one, the four helos lifted up, turning in the air and heading for the massive metal warship squatting on the other side of the river.
Cassandra didn’t see her mother in the cockpit or the observation ports. Not even one final glance.
Cassandra turned her attention to Temmell. ‘You lied to them.
They might have taken me if they thought there was even a hope I could use my legs again . . .’
‘But you didn’t want to leave, did you? Not truly.’
‘You lied to them!’
‘I merely denied the truth. Which among them would believe my enchantment over your flesh?’ asked the sorcerer. ‘Not even your own family. They hold to their power and I hold to mine.’
‘You need to keep me trapped here, don’t you? A convenient piece of bait to dangle in front of Alexamir.’
‘Perhaps I value our little evening conversations more than you think,’ smiled the sorcerer. ‘Someone whose interests stretch further than how many cattle your kin have stolen during the week . . .’ ‘What do you really want, Temmell?’
‘Always just a little bit more than I already have,’ said the odd golden-skinned man. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, sounding vexed. ‘There was more, once. But what was it?
Would that I could pick it out of my throbbing soup of a mind. No matter. I shall start by regaining lost face. Your people dare come here and rake my new skyguard with their rockets and cannons? To treat with me as though I am one of their filthy slaves? They will pay sorely for their arrogance!’
Cassandra snorted in derision. ‘I would settle for being glad your land has nothing the Imperium’s legions desire.’ Certainly not me, anymore.
Temmell’s sly eyes watched the giant Vandian warship. He said nothing more until the vessel rose into the air, swivelling on pillars of fire from her engine pods, anti-gravity stones studding her hull flaring into life and pushing her into the sky. ‘As I said, they have their power. I have mine.’
They left me. Abandoned me. It was one thing to learn the Code of Caste from birth. To watch badly wounded duellists swaying in the arena sand and call for the Knife of Honour from the emperor’s stand, to open their bowels with the blade. Quite another to experience the code’s cruel logic first-hand. Of course my mother abandoned me. I should never have hoped otherwise. ‘I am finished,’ she whispered. ‘Not yet,’ said Temmell. He had fine hearing. ‘All that training, all that dedication. Every day. Duty every single hour. A living blade polished to perfection. No existence but service to the house and empire. No amusements. Never a second of freedom to live your life as you might choose. You pick up a single blemish and what do they do? They discard the knife on the ground. Toss it into the dirt without a second thought. No longer wanted. Doesn’t that make you angry?’ ‘Yes,’ growled Cassandra. She was shocked how easily her grief boiled into fury. A fiery sea of magma that even a stratovolcano’s crater could not contain. ‘I’m not broken. I’m not.’ To hell with the house and the Imperium. How dare they stand here with pity and shame in their eyes, judging me. I survived. I’m free and alive, and even without my legs, I’m more than they could ever make me. And I will make myself more yet.
‘You are only what you believe. A better lesson than dusty words in old texts, don’t you think?’ said Temmell. ‘Everything passes and so little of it matters. Not what you thought once was of consequence, certainly. The world turns with the tedious inevitability of the wheels on a trader’s wagon. And it all fades. What you love and cherish. Your life, my life, all our little certainties. They all fly away in the end.’ ‘Then what do we live for?’
‘Oh, I’d suggest making fine mischief,’ said Temmell. ‘And best suiting ourselves.’
Cassandra gazed down at her stupid useless legs. She loathed them almost as much as she did this lying trickster. ‘I should never have let Alexamir risk himself for me.’
‘Tell yourself that you had no choice in the matter,’ suggested Temmell.
‘If Alexamir is killed or hurt in Rodal, I shall crawl every inch of this land to track you down. I’ll pull the feathers out of your concealed wings as though I was plucking a plump chicken and finish by slitting your throat to see what colour blood your abomination of a heart pumps.’
‘You deserve to walk again,’ laughed Temmell. ‘Your imperial friend spoke the truth. You deserve to be Queen of the Steppes. Perhaps more than Kani Yargul deserves to be Krul of Kruls.’
‘May we all get what we deserve.’
‘I do believe you have unlocked the first door of your cage,’ said Temmell. ‘If Alexamir survives his little task for me, I shall be sure to open the last gate for you. I will let you loose on the world again.
I don’t think Pellas will thank me for the deed, but then when has it ever? Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.’ Temmell shook his head and stood up straight, as though waking from a slumber. ‘I will find myself, out here, one day. Fires to put out. Yes, and a few more to start. Go back to the tent of Alexamir’s aunt. Drink your troubles away on her milky firewater. Forget your old life. It was worthless and this is as fine a place to be reborn as anywhere.’
Cassandra tugged on the reins and set her nag trotting towards old Nonna and her cooling supper. She kept one eye on the horizon, but no longer watching for Vandian rescue aircraft. Alexamir. Return alive for me. You must.
There was a chuckle from the lip of the well above and Alexamir, his desperate spine-walking along the shaft temporarily halted, imagined the vent-man sighting on his skull and conjuring up all the things the bounty on an intruder’s corpse would pay for. I just have one more gift to add. The nomad’s left foot hit empty space where a side-tunnel had been carved into the well’s wall. Exactly where the map said it would.
‘You want a song?’ Alexamir called up. ‘Here it is!’
He released the tension of his body stretched out across the shaft, using the sudden momentum to swing himself forward on the climbing line, carried across towards the side-tunnel. As his bulk came down on his climbing line, the first pin in the well’s mouth above took his full weight. The booby-trapped iron pin cracked forward on its hidden lever mechanism. A cloud of arrows released from the ceiling of the passage above the well. Many of the projectiles whistled down through the shaft, shooting into the narrow space so recently vacated by Alexamir. But enough of the volley met the vent-man’s back. He went from leaning over the well to tumbling down into it. Alexamir hit the side-passage, rolled, and turned just in time to see the ventman’s corpse plummeting past, his back feathered with arrow shafts. A second later the rice-eater’s pistol and mess of climbing gear came cracking past, jouncing off the well’s sides and heading after their owner. Alexamir poked his head out, watching the dim light from the worker’s torch painting the sides of the well, the illumination growing smaller and smaller, before vanishing to a distant termination. So deep he didn’t even hear the impact of landing. With any luck, the vent-man’s death would be written off as forgetfulness, tying his l
ine’s clip to one of the traps set to murder intruders. Alexamir leaned out, grabbed the end of his line still attached to the iron pin and triggered the clip release, catching the line as it tumbled.
‘Thank you, Aunt,’ whispered Alexamir. First fight using your brain. His escape had been as narrow as Hadra-Hareer’s labyrinth of air vents. He had barely reached the snared shaft with enough time to climb into the side-tunnel. A second slower and it would be me at the bottom of the shaft, riddled with bullets. Truly, Atamva, you favour the bold. He gobbed down the shaft. Many thought the Nijumeti tradition of spitting on defeated foes was an insult, but it was not. You have to wet the souls of the fallen so they will not burn when they pass the Three Fiery Rivers circling hell. As long as they fought bravely. The cowards cry to keep from burning. Any fool knows this.
Thankfully, the remainder of his claustrophobic voyage through the hidden depths of the rice-eaters’ tomb was made without encountering any other locals. The air grew closer, warmer, the scent of Rodalians on it, and he knew he was getting close to the temple of the monks. He had timed his arrival for long after the last townspeople should have departed the temple complex. And hopefully, many of the monks will be resting or in prayer.
Alexamir’s prior visit to the Temple of the Winds – posing as one of hundreds of pilgrims and worshippers – had been more than enough to convince him that an indirect approach through the temple’s ventilation shafts was the best way to gain his prize. Chamber after chamber, echoing and cavernous, filled with the chants of priests and the clack-clack-clack of prayer wheels being turned, dozens of heavy wooden doors and portals that would be locked and guarded after the temple shut to the public. Actually stealing the Rodalians’ holy text, he mused, would have been a far easier task than having to memorize the monks’ holy of holies and escape without the crime being detected. So much easier to take the book by guile and brute force, kill as many as needed, and leave a trail of rice-eaters’ bodies all the way through the passes of Hadra-Hareer.
Luckily for Temmell Longgate, the gods had provided him with Alexamir Arinnbold’s services. His map through the airshafts led him directly to the Chamber of Lights, the temple’s inner sanctum. He removed the iron grille high in the ceiling and secured his climbing line to the pin closest to the opening. One last check before he descended. No monks here. This part of the temple was locked away at the rear of the connected rooms – one way in, one way out. During the day, pilgrims had to queue for hours before they were ushered through this place in near silence in small groups; only the monks muttering prayers and giving thanks as they accompanied the penitent worshippers. Sadly for the rice-eaters, my prayers are as false as my skin.
The floor of the chamber lay seventy feet below him. There was no light from outside the mountain now, the mirrored chutes lining the wall and ceiling protruding dull and dark. Four wooden wheels studded with glow-stones hung from the ceiling, alternating with yellow and orange stones, one of the wheels near enough to Alexamir for him to touch and swing from – if he had been minded. Instead, he quickly shimmied down the line, coming down fast enough to catch friction burns from the rope. The chamber’s walls had been painted with proud frescoes of scenes from the monks’ teachings. The nearest was a flying wing wrestling with the currents of an unfriendly wind high above a mountain range, a grim look of determination on the pilot’s face below his aviator’s goggles. Friendly spirits hurtled up from the slopes below, encouraged to his aid by a monk with a staff standing small on the ground. They boast of being able to summon the wind to their aid, but where are their spirits now? Locked outside, while I am the wolf prowling inside their lamb pen. So many monks, yet none of them quite holy enough to be taken into the confidence of their spirits. The winds love to whisper. But they did not whisper warnings of me.
Across the floor lay six brick-walled pools surrounding a seventh, far larger one, in the centre of the chamber. The six round pools were set as petals circling the head of the largest well. Each had a winch-like contraption resting above the water’s surface. And each pool, lapping with laboriously blessed holy water, contained a holy book at the bottom of the well. Precious copper plates etched with their holy teachings. This arrangement, Alexamir had been told, was because the power of the texts was such that should they be left out of the water for more than an hour, the books summoned terrible forces that would melt the pages – claiming the souls of those that minded the texts and dissolving even the sturdy metal-leafed pages. Only cooling inside blessed water preserved their texts from this fate. Alexamir moved towards the central reservoir, halting as he heard a sound. A voice, laughing, had carried along the corridor outside the Chamber of Lights. But it was from far away. And it was the greatest of the seven lights that he had come to filch, here in the centre. The Deb-rlung’rta. He strained to hear any rice-eater near enough to realize the winch was in use, but the temple gave him only silence, so he set to his task. A wooden handle on a drum brought up the cable chains bearing the cage from below. The smear of orange that was the copper-plated book came up near-silently. Somebody had taken a lot of trouble to grease the chains this well. Alexamir approved. I suppose the monks do not want their devotions and holy silence interrupted by squealing iron. The cage broke the surface of the pool and swayed there, dripping water. There were no locks on the rectangular cage holding the text inside and Alexamir felt a sudden nag of apprehension. Will I burst into flames when I touch it – is that why it is unlocked? Will their spirits whistle down the air shafts above, pull me away and break my bones inside their dark tunnels? He said a quick prayer to Atamva and every god of the grass who owed him a favour and turned the cage towards him, lifting off its roof. The tome inside was large and weighty. The book would have easily filled a rider’s main saddlebag all by itself if theft had been the nomad’s intention . . . and given the horse good reason to curse its owner. He hauled the Deb-rlung’rta out – like carrying a hefty boulder – and bore it over to a stone pew overlooking the pool, where its reading was obviously intended. He wasn’t sure what was to happen when he opened the pages. The slippery sorcerer had merely suggested the enchantment of disguise over Alexamir would allow him to gaze at the pages and retain their holy secrets, but when he stared at the first page, he had his doubts. It was just a mess of squiggles, as if someone had taken a dagger’s tip to the copper plate in boredom and scored meaningless shapes there. Does the sorcerer know I cannot read anything other than maps? Well, tough on him if he didn’t. Alexamir had broken into the Temple of the Winds in the heart of the enemies’ fastness and capital. If the foreign fool’s magic doesn’t work as promised, he will still honour the healing of the Golden Fox or be known among all the clans as the greatest oath-breaker to disappoint a hero since Jonovich the Liar sold the Krul’s own sword to a demon. The next page was the same incomprehensible litter of what were undoubtedly letters. It was when Alexamir reached the third page that someone stabbed a thin dagger of ice into his forehead, the cold shock of the attack almost sending him reeling back from the stone pew. He grasped tightly on to the pew, the vision of the holy book swimming in and out of view. Then things grew clear. Gloriously clear. It was as though someone had lowered an enchanted crystal visor over his eyes, everything glowing with intense diamondsharp clarity. Alexamir swayed there for a few seconds more getting used to the new senses he had been gifted. The Deb-rlung’rta was a child’s toy compared to the thousands of motes of dust dancing in the light of the glow-stone wheels, the frescoes’ stories on every wall vivid and bright even in the gloom. He ran a finger over the stone pew, marble lines like the tributaries of rivers on a map that only he could understand. This was the opposite of being drunk. Not slumbering but fully awake. He had broken into the Chamber of so-called Lights, but he was the lantern now, casting the light of his brilliance with every gaze. Contentedly, he turned the heavy pages of the Rodalians’ book of the winds, each curve, curl, arch and bow of the characters a thing of beauty, still unintelligible, but gently so, as ple
asing as the stars of the constellations as they crawled through the night sky. Pages clacked over, as though he was playing a game of encircling stones against himself. He again heard the sound of the voice drifting down the corridor outside the chamber. This time he marked it properly: a male’s voice, elderly, speaking loudly to overcome his loss of hearing. Sitting around two hundred feet away, and from the shifts of the echo, inside the outer temple rooms. There was a second voice too, speaking at a correct volume; so younger, an initiate monk being lectured about his tardiness, no doubt. Each page of the Deb-rlung’rta dropped like a felled tree, quickly perused and appreciated before the next metal sheet turned. It didn’t take more than five minutes to reach the end of the text – well before the hour expired that would call evil spirits upon him. He fetched the weighty metal book back to the cage, shut the cage door, and lowered it back to its blessing inside the pool of holy water. As Alexamir gripped the bottom of the climbing line and made to climb back towards the ceiling, he was deeply tempted to wander the walls and examine the images of the temple walls, too. Why didn’t I notice these the first time I visited? But the sorcerer was not paying him for all the monks’ tales of wisdom, only their holy of holies, and this he now carried, folded inside him, invisible and unseen, like the knowledge of navigating by the stars, or reading a map. Alexamir scaled the rope, pulled up the climbing line, resealed the grille with the steel tool designed for the task, and then he crawled out towards the surface, the clarity of the universe slowly fading to a dull, throbbing disappointment with each foot he crept.
Duncan watched Helrena arguing furiously with Prince Gyal. Duncan stood sentry silently, brooding, with Paetro beside him. The only other witness to the argument was Apolleon, the chief of the hoodsmen. The master of the Imperium’s secret police had recently arrived from Vandia on a fast cruiser called the Dark Moon. His presence further unsettled Duncan. Nothing good is ever augured by that man’s arrival. Duncan wasn’t even sure if Apolleon was fully human. I caught a glimpse of your true self, Apolleon. Back in the Castle of Snakes when their laboratory had been attacked. Another body flickering between the shadows, leaping to the castle’s defence, evil and spider-like. Or perhaps what Duncan had glimpsed was just a side-effect of the chemicals spilled when Circae’s assassins came to kidnap Lady Cassandra. He wiped a tear away from his eye, trying to forget how forlorn and small Cassandra had looked on top of her mare as their helo lifted away. I failed you, Cassandra. I allowed you to be abducted by Jacob Carnehan. I allowed you to be kept as a prisoner. And when we finally tracked you down, I watched your own people discard you like a broken tool in the grass. Duncan couldn’t even look at himself in a mirror anymore when he shaved. What have I become? ‘A true son of the Imperium,’ whispered a voice that might have been his conscience.