Path of Revenge

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  His master was right, Torve acknowledged. Lenares was dangerous. She had no social grace, no sense of situational awareness, to keep her from speaking the truth she saw. An opponent with no understanding of the rules. Someone to be avoided no matter the cost.

  Someone to be pursued with all he possessed.

  CHAPTER 5

  EXPEDITION

  ALL HEADS TURNED TOWARDS Lenares the moment she walked through the door into the cosmographers’ house. People filled the wide hallway leading to the living quarters: sixteen cosmographers, twenty acolytes, all the servants, even the cleaners, clucking at the dirty sandals treading on their polished stone floor. Including herself, ninety-six feet dirtying the flagstones.

  She was beseiged with questions. Where had she been? Where was Mahudia? What did the Emperor want? Where did she get that dress? On and on they went, jabbering at her, leaning towards her, touching her, not respecting her need for space, for silence, ignoring what she was trying to tell them.

  Lenares found it unbearable. She put her hands to her head and screamed.

  The babble ceased. The silence eased her like scented oil, the kind the women of the Palace had poured over her after the scratching of the pumice loofah. Lenares wanted to tell all the people to go away, but that would only make them angry.

  ‘I’ll answer your questions, one at a time, please,’ she said primly, and sat down on the nearest bench. ‘Can someone bring me something to eat? A spiced sausage would be nice.’ One of the acolytes—she didn’t see who—scampered off towards the kitchen. That felt good. Lenares the Cosmographer, favoured of the Emperor, whom people obeyed.

  ‘I saw the Emperor,’ she said, unable to help herself. ‘He invited me to speak at his court.’

  Two girls rolled their eyes at each other. Lenares knew what that meant.

  ‘I don’t care if you believe me or not. I’m just telling you where I’ve been. That’s where I got this dress; the Emperor gave it to me. If I didn’t go to his court, where else would I have got it from?’

  ‘Never mind the dress,’ said Nehane. The older of the two male cosmographers and the highest ranked behind Mahudia herself, Nehane was a nice man, short and round, bald except for a funny tuft of white hair behind each ear. He was very clever, but there was something sad in his past. Lenares had never learned exactly what it was, but it concerned his mother. ‘Where is Mahudia? Why did she not return with you?’

  ‘Mahudia is in the dungeons,’ Lenares replied. Her words were received with a chorus of anxious groans.

  Nehane knelt down in front of Lenares, his brown eyes wide open, fixed on her. ‘The dungeons? What has she done wrong? What are they doing with her?’

  ‘They asked us questions. About the earthquake, about the hole in the world and the missing god. They believed me, even if none of you do.’ She looked past Nehane’s concerned face, trying to catch the eye of Rouza or Palain. Neither paid her any attention: Palain was in Rouza’s ear, no doubt gossiping.

  ‘Asked you questions? You were both in the dungeons?’ Nehane scratched his head, then puffed out an annoyed breath. ‘You had better tell us the whole story. And we had better listen carefully,’ he said, raising his voice at this last. He turned and got to his feet. ‘I’ll tolerate no fun-making. Lenares is a cosmographer now, and is to be accorded the respect you others hope one day to receive. Am I clear?’

  ‘Yes, Cosmographer Nehane,’ the acolytes chorused.

  Lenares tried, but she could not keep a satisfied grin from settling on her face as she told them her story. Many of these acolytes, and even some of the cosmographers, had hurt her in the past. Palain and Rouza were the worst, always making trouble for her, blaming her for things she hadn’t done, telling Mahudia when she went through a phase of bed-wetting, and always playing tricks, silly practical jokes to make her look a fool. The worst was the time they broke into her room and shifted everything slightly, just enough to put all her thinking out. She’d had a headache for days until they’d told her what they had done. Everyone had thought it a great joke. Even Mahudia had laughed.

  Gradually Rouza and Palain faded from her mind as she warmed to her story. Twice now in one day she had found herself the focus of attention, and the feeling of belonging, of wellbeing, wrapped itself around her like an embrace. This was what being a cosmographer was supposed to be like.

  Some of her listeners did not believe her story, she could tell. More accurately, they thought she was muddling things up again. Acolytes, mostly, but they no longer count. I only have to convince the cosmographers. She told them how she predicted the earthquake, and of the questioning the Emperor and his pet Omeran had subjected them to. This last detail convinced a number of the cosmographers she was telling the truth. Torve the Omeran was known to all who had been raised cosmographers in the last decade. He and his master had become inseparable, Nehane told her. It was something of a scandal.

  ‘I’m inclined to believe you, strange as it sounds,’ he said when her tale had come to an end. ‘Thank you, Lenares; you have done well.’

  Lenares bowed her head, as was proper, and covered her mouth to hide her smile. Rouza didn’t like it when she smiled, and would make trouble for her if she saw it. But Rouza remained an acolyte, while Lenares was a cosmographer, and the acolyte couldn’t hurt her now, could she?

  ‘The question is, what do we do?’ Nehane hitched his robe a little higher. ‘Lenares assures us that, apart from a few threats, the Emperor inflicted no harm on Mahudia. But we cannot be certain she will remain unharmed in that terrible place. We all know the rumours regarding what happens there. Lyanal, take Pettera and go to the guildhall of the Elboran Alliance.’ He gesturd to one of the younger cosmographers, a quiet, studious woman—a bit of a dullard, Lenares had always thought—and a female acolyte Lenares spent little time with. ‘There you are to make enquiries of sor Hudan, Mahudia’s father. We must find out what he knows, if anything. I will go to the Palace and seek an audience with an official regarding Mahudia’s disposition.’

  ‘I will accompany you,’ said Arazma, Rouza’s mother and the oldest of the cosmographers. She had suffered a wasting sickness ten years ago, but unlike most who contracted it she had regained at least a semblance of health, though she was partially palsied down one side. Lenares did not like her.

  Nehane frowned. ‘Then Rouza will assist us.’

  ‘Ma sor, I have much studying to do,’ the girl said in her piping voice. ‘I am already compromised because of yesterday’s events. Please don’t let me fall further behind.’

  Why could they not see how false she was? Such a liar, always twisting the truth, as now. Sympathy for her mother, the other girls had decided, meant she was indulged. Nobody except Palain liked her.

  ‘Very well. Archenna? Fetch ma dama Arazma’s walking stick. We will leave immediately. Lenares, you look exhausted. Go and get some sleep. The rest of you, follow Rouza’s excellent example and study hard. Make Mahudia proud of you when she returns.’

  Acolytes ran off down the corridor, while cosmographers made a more dignified exit. Lenares stretched and yawned; she was tired, though at the same time she brimmed with energy. Yesterday she would have rushed away with her fellow acolytes. Today she tried walking in a more sedate fashion, though she could not help skipping a few steps.

  Along the corridor, counting her steps, careful not to step on the cracks between the flagstones, past the servants’ quarters to her left, then—deep breath—straight on where she would ordinarily turn right into the acolytes’ quarters. Directly ahead of her stood the double doors into the cosmographers’ common room. Another deep breath, then she pushed them open and walked through.

  Disappointment. The cosmographers were supposed to line either side of the common room while the Chief Cosmographer issued the newly raised cosmographer a welcome and showed her to her new quarters. However, the only person in the room sat in a couch with her back to Lenares and didn’t even turn her head when she entered the room. Where was
the welcome? The speech? It was tradition!

  But the Emperor held Mahudia in his dungeon, and Nehane had gone to see about her. Perhaps the welcome would be conducted when they returned. Lenares walked over to the cosmographer.

  ‘Vinaru, do you know which room is mine?’

  The middle-aged woman peered at her with heavy-lidded eyes, making her seem half-asleep, just as she always looked when teaching advanced numeracy to the acolytes. ‘Lenares, isn’t it?’ She knew full well who it was. ‘Our new cosmographer. I opposed your elevation, you know. Still do. Oh yes, your work is adequate, sometimes brilliant. But you’re fragile, girl. Unstable. No spine to you. You’ll need constant management. You drive Mahudia to distraction, that you do. More trouble than you’re worth, in my opinion. Time you knew what I thought.’

  Lenares stood there, her mouth open in shock. How could her teacher say such things?

  Vinaru’s eyes narrowed. ‘My word, have I surprised you? And to think you claim you can read everyone’s minds with those numbers of yours! A pity your ability does not match your conceit!’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Lenares tried to keep her voice from wailing. ‘I can’t read all the numbers I see. I’d never be able to move from one spot if I did. You don’t want to understand, Vinaru, you’re just jealous that I’m better at numeracy than you.’

  The lidded eyes sprang open. ‘Oh? Better, are you? You are a fool. And you will call me ma dama Vinaru, that you will. I intend to have respect from you, if nothing else.’

  ‘But I am a cosmographer newly raised! I do not have to add the honorific. Mahudia said!’

  ‘Until I see some proof that you deserve the title, you will address me properly, girl. Now leave me in peace. Go back to your room and study. Son knows you need it.’

  ‘But…but what about my room?’ Lenares pointed towards the corridor leading to the cosmographers’ quarters. ‘I don’t know which room I’ve been given.’

  The woman laughed. ‘Poor Lenares. Mahudia’s vain pet has missed out on her welcome, and now she labours under the impression that a room has been prepared for her in the cosmographers’ quarters. How disappointed she will be when she finds out that no such room exists. Who did you think was going to prepare it for you, stupid girl? Mahudia lies captive in a dungeon, injured or dead for all we know, and you are so selfish you expected someone else to make ready a room for you! You want the Chief Cosmographer to break out of her cell so she can tuck in your blankets? Pah! Go back to your room in the acolytes’ quarters and thank the Son on your knees you have accommodation of any sort.’

  A fog of despair descended on Lenares’ mind, blurring her thoughts. ‘Yes, ma dama Vinaru,’ she said meekly, then turned and left the common room.

  So deeply immersed in her misery was she by the time she reached the acolytes’ quarters, she failed to notice the suspiciously half-open door to the common room. She pushed at the door, heard a rattle, and glanced up in time to receive a face full of water.

  Her mind broke into several functioning parts, one part registering the shock of the cold, dirty water from a cleaner’s bucket, another assessing and then becoming angry at the damage to her dress, a third playing with numbers, figuring probabilities but knowing there was no need as a fourth part of her mind heard the laughter she had grown to hate, and until a few minutes ago had thought to have put behind her forever.

  A fifth and surprising thought came to her. I am a cosmographer, it said. Nothing Vinaru thinks can change that. I have been raised because of what I do with numbers, not because people like me. It was as though the bucket of water dispersed the fog Vinaru had brought down upon her.

  She turned her face to the laughter. Rouza and Palain laughed the loudest, of course, but even the girls who hated Rouza laughed along with her. They meant to be hurtful, but Lenares could not feel the hurt. She was no longer who they thought she was. She had never been able to see her own numbers, but knew that if she could, there would be a change in them.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Rouza said in her squeaky voice. ‘You’re all wet, ma dama Lenares.’ Dutiful laughter followed the words.

  ‘Let us help you out of that dress, ma dama Lenares,’ Palain said sweetly. She turned to the others. ‘We have to look after our new-raised cosmographer. We don’t want her to catch a cold.’ More laughter. A few of the girls rose from their chairs, ready to pluck at her clothes.

  Lenares registered this with only a fraction of her mind. Something different seemed to be happening to her. Usually one loud emotion dominated all the others, and faced with a practical joke like this she would scream or fight or run, or do something equally embarrassing. But today all the parts of her mind seemed to have found a balance. She could choose how to react.

  ‘Thank you, Palain and Rouza,’ she said, forcing herself to smile. ‘I know you wanted to hurt me, but instead you have reminded me I am no longer a child. I’m not like you. I’m wet to the skin, but at least I’m not stupid to the bone.’

  She raised her skirts, then turned her gaze to the door to the sleeping quarters and began to count like the ladies-in-waiting had taught her. A stunned silence followed her slow steps across the common room and down the hall. She reached twenty-five before she stood in front of her door. Five fives. Five parts of her mind in balance. She opened her door and went in, closed it behind her without looking back, then collapsed on her bed, wet dress and all, and cried herself to sleep.

  The Emperor raised a white-gloved hand, calling Torve to a halt. The kid gloves were a recent affectation, a statement of purity in an increasingly corrupt court. Of course, such statements could be deceiving, as his master had just finished proving. Torve could still smell the remnants of his master’s excitement, bloodlust born of an obsessive cruelty that left the Omeran continually amazed. The old woman hadn’t known much; her only mistake having been to be found in the wrong place. Despite the questioning she had not been able to explain how she had penetrated Palace security to find herself in the Garden of Angels. Nor could she explain how she had located her foolish son’s resting place. This despite the brutal and inventive nature of her questioning.

  His master had used the new toxins acquired recently from a barbarian caravan, experimenting with them while Torve chronicled their effects. The Emperor’s excitement spiralled down to disappointment when no final insight was forthcoming from his subject. For all his efforts, his master’s explorations of the realm of death seemed to have stalled.

  Torve spent some time after that trying to scour away what he had seen, to little effect. Water on the skin, however vigorously applied, could not remove the growing horror taking shape within him. Even his Defiance no longer kept the memories at bay.

  He followed his master into a small meeting chamber, accompanied by two Omeran guards who looked on him with pity in their eyes. We grieve for you, their flat gazes said. We know how you serve your master.

  ‘When the Lords Hudan and Tumille arrive, show them in directly,’ the Emperor said to his guards, waving them away. One guard nodded, then followed his fellow from the room. They would stand watch at a door some way down the hall, Torve knew, one of many strategies to foil assassins, though close enough to intervene should something go amiss.

  ‘We are tired of being kept waiting,’ the Emperor said, more to himself than to Torve, after some minutes had elapsed. ‘We do believe it is time to show these Alliances something of the Emperor’s true power.’

  The door opened as if in response to his words. Hudan entered with his customary economy of movement, made his obeisance and took a seat. He was followed not by Tumille but by a young man with a wispy beard unsuccessfully disguising a weak chin. Mila, Tumille’s oldest son. Ah.

  As always, his Emperor was there ahead of him, the question asked before the obeisance could begin. ‘How did he die?’

  The boy did not answer until his obeisance was complete. ‘Ma great sor, my father took his own life. He could not live with his shame, he said.’ The bitterness in the
young man’s gaze betrayed the truth: suicide had been offered, and chosen, as an alternative to a painful death delivered by his family.

  The Emperor clicked his tongue at the news, as though deprived of an opportunity. A waste, Torve thought. The dying reflections of one such as Tumille would have been worth much. A loyal but troubling thought.

  ‘You have the right of primogeniture to be here, boy, but you’ll be of little use to us for many years.’ The Emperor shifted to his low, compelling voice, and the young man paled. ‘Go back to your mother and your sister.’

  The boy’s feet jerked and he half-turned towards the door; but then he screwed up his face and stood firm. ‘My place is here, representing one of the larger Alliances in Elamaq. I owe them, and my family, my allegiance.’ Brave or foolish—or possibly both. Torve winced and prepared himself.

  The Emperor’s eyebrows flew up, visible above his mask. ‘You defy a direct order?’

  A ghastly weight settled on the room with the words, a presence so deep and heavy it seemed to bend reality around itself. Shadows gathered, pressing down upon them with their own gravity. The Emperor’s mask seemed to puff out, as though moulded to the skin of another, the face of a younger man. Below him, floorboards groaned. Tumille’s son sank to his knees. The breath caught in Torve’s throat. Surely his master would not…

  He did not. The moment passed, the weight withdrew, the shadows receded.

  ‘You surprise us. We would not have expected any spawn of Tumille’s to show such teeth.’ The Emperor paused in apparent thought. ‘We will support your bid to lead your Alliance, though it will cost you. A discussion for later. Remain, then, and learn what we had planned for your father and his ally, ma sor Hudan.’

  Torve calmed his breathing as he half-listened to his master explain to an incredulous boy the reality behind yesterday’s pronouncements from the throne. Hudan said little, mostly nodding to support his Emperor when required. The Omeran knew his master withheld much: he himself knew far more than Hudan and Tumille’s son were told, and had divined still more; but that there were further plans as yet hidden was a certainty. The Emperor of Elamaq was an obsessive man who planned with meticulous detail, attending to every possibility, yet was also capable of thinking while on the move, a rare skill. Obsessive. The perfect word to describe the man at the dark heart of the empire.