by Tim Stead
“It is not important.”
Quin looked at her. He had been so focussed on his rehearsed speech that he had not heard the words that she spoke, not until now.
“You would accept me?” he asked.
“Nothing would please me more than to be your wife,” she said. “If you ask I will encourage my father to assent to the match.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she echoed. “Why? Why do you want to ask for my hand?”
“You are perfect,” he said. “You are beautiful, courageous, clever, kind. I have loved you since I was a child.”
She laughed. “Well, at least there is still part of you that is a child,” she said, but her tone was kind. She took his hand again, held it between both of hers. “There was not much to distinguish any of you when you were young. Just boys, and we were children, too. As you grew you all flattered me and the other ladies of the Duke’s court, competed for our favour. All the sword fighting, the titles, the ranks, it all meant little to me, but your accident marked you out. It changed you. I pitied you then, and for the years that you withdrew from the rest of us. I pitied you. But then you came back to us, took up a blade again, bore the jokes, fought against your fate. I have not seen such courage. Even battle is easier than what you did. With all your friends to draw you on it is easy to wave a sword above your head and charge the enemy, but you fought your battle alone. You smiled when they mocked you.
“My father says that such a blow as you were dealt can do two things to a man. It can make you bitter, or it can make you wise. There is no bitterness in you, Quinnial. These last years you have been a man among boys. Your first thought is for others. You see what is important. The others are vain, selfish, ambitious, even cruel. I would not wish to live in the greatest estate ruled by such passions. You are the best of them all. You are the one that I love.”
Quin was speechless. He had never seen himself in that way, as a hero, battling against odds. To him it had been simple. He was crippled. His choice was to waste his life in misery or to make the best of what he had. Even that small decision had taken years.
“So it is a yes?” he said.
She laughed again and slapped his hand. “Yes, Quin, yes. It is a yes. Ask my father.”
This was the best day of his life; the best since his father had placed him upon his great war-horse, aged only nine years, placed him there ahead of his brother. He felt the same warm flush of happiness, but this time there would be no fall, no disaster. She loved him, and his joy was complete.
5. Wolfguard
Narak could not chase the doubts from his mind. Each time that he tried to relax the same questions returned to trouble him, and in his dreams he saw the green and black banners of Seth Yarra rising still above the burning ships at Afael. He was once again the bloodstained god, standing in the sanguine streets above the gutted harbour.
He feared Seth Yarra. In that last battle they had feared him, but still they had run at his flashing blades again and again, only to be ripped apart. They had run at him when his aspect was upon him, when he strode the city as a god. It was a kind of madness produced by the warring of twin terrors within the head. The truth of it was that they had feared Seth Yarra more than they feared him.
He had suffered a sleepless night after speaking with Passerina. What few moments he had surrendered to dreams had been poor reward for the hours spent seeking them, and the dreams were more disturbing than his waking thoughts. He rose early and called for his breakfast, which was brought to him in the lair. He ate unenthusiastically, and when the dishes were cleared away he sat and brooded for most of the morning.
“Poor!” It was nearly midday when he summoned his steward.
“Deus, what is your wish?”
“Who is here, Poor? Who is in Wolfguard?”
The steward reeled off a list of names. They were all trusted, all his own. Most had served him before the war and shared centuries with him. He knew their characters, their abilities as well as he knew the balance of his twin blades.
“Good,” he said. “Send Narala and Perlaine. I will see them in an hour. Tell them they are to go on a journey on my behalf, and have them pack for the kingdoms. They will be going south.”
He sat and thought through his plan again. Narala he would send south through Telas, down to the Green Isles. She had many friends there, and properties. It would not be at all unusual for her to travel that way. Perlaine would go south along the Dragon’s Back, cross through the pass they called the green road, and follow the Erinor River south, staying at villages along the way. She was Berashi, but spoke the Avilian languages fluently, and would pass well enough as one of them. She was fair and pale skinned. They would not think twice to question her presence. The two of them would take their time, stop in many places, listen to gossip, sound out the unusual and the curious.
He would also travel. It was simpler for him. Already there were wolves moving down from the forest at his bidding, making their way to the green road. He did not doubt that they would be given free and respectful passage by the Berashi guardsmen who held the gate. From there they would approach Bas Erinor by a direct route somewhat ahead of Perlaine. He would meet her there, or at least send wolves to meet her and join her when she was found.
It was the Duke that he wished to see. Four hundred years ago Narak had been close to the keeper of the city of gods, but time and death had made him something of a dilettante friend to mortal men. He had not left the forest in all that time. He had not wished to leave the forest. Now, however, he had convinced himself, in spite of the scarcity of evidence, that it had become necessary.
The ladies arrived together; Narala and Perlaine. If there were two more beautiful women in the five kingdoms he had never seen them.
Narala was dark, dark skinned, black haired, brown eyed. She was from the Green Isles. He was always delighted by the perfect whiteness of her eyes against her sun blessed face, the sudden brightness of her smile. She was shorter than Perlaine, her thick hair trimmed short in the fashion of the Green Isles, and she wore a white robe that left her arms bare, but brushed the ground at her feet.
Perlaine was opposite. She was tall, slender as a pine, blue eyed. Her white blond hair was rare in Berash, not so rare in Avilian. It fell in long, silky curtains about her face, her right hand always on duty to sweep it back from her eyes. She wore a simple white tunic, brown breeches, and riding boots. Perlaine struggled against her beauty as much as Narala embraced hers. Both had been his lovers. Both he trusted beyond question.
They knelt before him, eyes lowered, and he touched each on the head in turn.
“Rise,” he said. “Be comfortable. I need your advice, and I have a journey for each of you. You know that I value your thoughts, so speak freely.”
They sat either side of him. He produced wine and three glasses and they sipped as they spoke. The instructions were simple enough. Travel slowly, speak with people, look for rumours that might suggest unusual events or unusual people; be a physic to the land and diagnose its ills. He did not mention Seth Yarra, or the note, though he had no doubt that news of the previous night’s events would have come to their ears by now. A closed community such as Wolfguard was a hostile environment for secrets, and they did not survive for long.
“If you will forgive me for saying so, Deus,” Narala said. “Your commands to us are like mist, and I fear they may fade from our grasp as we travel.” A small frown attested to her earnest desire to understand, her lack of assurance. Perlaine too displayed concern. Her right hand swept more often at her hair. Her shoulder hunched forwards a little.
“I cannot be more definite,” Narak said. “If I command you to seek a certain thing, then you may find it even if it is not there. It is the nature of people. Just be aware of what is around you, taste the world, test its scent. I will come to you from time to time as you travel, and you may tell me what seems well or ill, or just changed. Look for the oddities and puzzles, the things that make ordin
ary folk shake their heads and shrug, mysteries and things new.”
“There could be much that may be so described, Deus,” Perlaine said. “How shall I know what is important?”
“You may not. I may not know when you tell me, but we will all do what we may and hope that it is enough.”
“Enough for what, Deus?”
He shook his head. They were better than this, he knew. Given a clear command they would carry it out with skill and creativity. It was their desire to please that tightened them up so. He wondered if he should just say to them what they wished – go look for signs of Seth Yarra. He had no doubt that they would be most diligent, but it was all more subtle than that. Nobody but he had even thought it. It had not said Seth Yarra in the note. The men hunting the dogs that he had seen in Bas Erinor were just men, just ragged street-hired men. It was quite possible that something else was awry, and he could not afford to focus Narala and Perlaine on just one cause.
“I have been too long in the forest,” he said. “I cannot make the judgements that must be made. When I come to you tell me everything, and we will solve the riddle together.”
They nodded, still uneasy, but apparently satisfied that the difficulty of the task was recognised.
“Now to lighter matters.” He smiled. “You will forgive me, Perlaine, but I think this is a task more suited to Narala. I require guidance on fashion, on style, on clothes.”
“Quite so,” Perlaine smiled. She disliked fashion and considered practicality paramount in such matters. “I will finish my preparations and leave at first light. My journey is longer.”
“I will send four feet with each of you, for protection, and that I may reach you at once should the need arise.”
Perlaine bowed. “Thank you, Deus.” She strode from the room, he heard her voice once in the corridor, calling for Poor, and then she was gone.
“Fashion, Deus?” Narala smiled.
“I must travel to Avilian, to Bas Erinor,” he said. “If I dress as I once did, they will think me an antique, and I know that you will say that I am, but I wish to travel unnoticed, unrecognised.”
Narala rubbed her ear lobe, her head cocked on one side.
“A merchant, Deus,” she said after a moment’s thought. “We will dress you as a prosperous merchant.”
“We have such clothes?”
“We can alter what we have. It is but the work of one day to do so.”
“Then it is your task to see it done before you depart, Narala.”
“How much of a disguise do you wish it to be, Deus?” she asked. He sensed humour in her voice. If he allowed her to work unguided he might end up concealed in the guise of a fop, a buffoon.
“You know my taste,” he said. “Do not exceed it overmuch.”
She nodded and left him with a swift bow, a simple nod of the head.
Seth Yarra
The phrase Seth Yarra has come to epitomise evil throughout the five kingdoms. Strictly speaking it is the name of an outland god, Seth Yarra, the destroyer and creator of all things, or so called by his followers. These people are believed to inhabit a substantial land many days sail to the east of Afael and the headland known as Worlds Tail. There can be no doubt that they are a numerous people, that they have mastered a technology of sailing that is, or was, quite beyond our own.
Their principle beliefs, the ones that led to them having such a terrible impact upon our own lands, are that firstly, only the followers of Seth Yarra are of any consequence, secondly, that all which is not Seth Yarra must be destroyed or converted, and thirdly, that all must be rebuilt according to their god’s dictates. They have even codified this into their priesthood, dividing it between Cleansers and Masters of the Rule. The former are in effect a warrior caste, and the latter are the sole authorities in the building of buildings and the planting of plants. From our limited experience of their ways it seems that they were intent on altering our lands to exactly resemble their own. What evidence we have suggests that they hold our lands to be in aberration from the divine plan, and that as soon as they became aware of us it was necessary to war against us under the dictates of their beliefs.
They are a strictly hierarchical system, highly disciplined and militaristic. Their leader is known by the misleading title of First Servant, and his will is, for all intents and purposes, law. However, it is thought that he is answerable to some degree to a council of priests in matters of orthodoxy. In truth we know very little of their customs and their form of government, as those prisoner that were taken during the war refused to answer questions, and indeed were largely successful in ending their own lives at the earliest opportunity.
Many believe that the defeat suffered by the Seth Yarra was so complete that they will not again attempt to conquer our lands, but others, myself included, take the view that religion will drive them, eventually, to try again.
Extract from Meditations on the Great War
By the Erudite Master Galian Terbustate
Vice Prefect of the Royal College of Historians at Golt
6 The Spy
Keb son of Jarl son of Hern son of Lers son of Nias held himself rigid in the middle of the corridor, held there by his distaste for the stonework, determined not to touch the walls. In his mind he repeated the prayer of purification, again and again as though its words could take him away from this terrible place, take him home.
My eyes are the eyes of the one god, they see for him.
My ears are the ears of the one god, they hear for him.
My hands are the hands of the one god, they act for him.
I give my eyes to Seth Yarra.
I give my ears to Seth Yarra.
I give my hands to Seth Yarra.
Protect me, Great God, from all that is tainted,
Bathe me in thy will that I may be pure.
He stared at the cold stone of the wall and at the way in which the blocks were laid, and it was wrong. It was taint. Everything here was taint. He tried to relax, to open his eyes and be what he was supposed to be, a heretic, a priest of the heretic cult of Ashmaren called Pelas Simal. A friend of this tainted city and this tainted land. He pushed down the fear that had chewed at him since his arrival here, the fear that he would never be free of it, and that the taint would steal his soul.
He allowed his mind to flee to a time before. He had been just a few months from the green cloth, less than a hundred days from the ceremony that would make him a priest, a Master of the Rule. Ten years of study, thirty examinations of his knowledge, fierce scrutiny of his character, and it had all come to this.
We need you, they had said. It is the will of Seth Yarra, they had said. There had been two of them; imposing figures in black and green robes, grey hair, stern eyes; men of status; men that he aspired to be.
So he had gone with them, and they had shown him things that he had never wanted to see, taught him histories that he struggled to believe. A secret war had been fought, so secret that none knew of it save those that had died, and a few that had remained home, privy to its secret. Seth Yarra had lost. Lost! Such a thing was impossible, and yet they said that it was so. There was a place, they told him, where the one god was denied, where the rule was broken. It was an insult. It was a taint upon the world.
Men and ships had gone, all in secret. Twenty thousand men and hundreds of ships had crossed the ocean to put right the wrong, to bring the truth of Seth Yarra’s rule to the dark places, and they had all died.
It was a place of demons, they told him. And they told him he was to go there.
To go here, to this city of abominations, a place of uncounted gods where things were done just as people had a whim to do them. He was comforted by the thought that he would be part of its destruction. He imagined the city built again according to the rule; he imagined one temple; he imagined the graceful towers and orderly buildings that would stand here once all this had been swept away.
It was a comfort.
The people, too, were hateful. They
dressed in an appalling welter of colours and styles, and the words they said were just as inconsistent, heretical and contradictory. It was almost impossible to find two people here who agreed on a single matter. Their favourite word seemed to be ‘but’. I agree with you, but… you are right, but… that is true, but…
They had no concept of truth; simple, divine truth.
The place was driving him mad. A few days ago he had been able to stand the heretical chanting of the priests no longer, and had fled out into the rain. By chance he had come across the house of the demon itself, the arch fiend who had slain the First Servant of Seth Yarra on that ill fated expedition, Fenris God Killer, the one they called Narak.
He saw people go in, and it offended him to think that people worshipped the demon, that they honoured it. He stood in the rain, transfixed by the horror of it, thinking back to the choice he had made, so many years ago.
To aspire to the priesthood of Seth Yarra was the highest calling, and only the best were taken, but even then, even when one wore the grey robes of a sworn servant there was a great choice to be made; the choice between black and green, between Seth and Yarra, between cleansing and building.