“I saw them cutting through the square with your wife in their midst,” the man said. Aisling looked him over, realized he was a dark knight, puzzled at the rough familiarity, the seeming baggage between the new arrival and Terian, and came to a quick conclusion. This is Amenon Lepos.
Wait. Wasn’t he dead?
“I presumed they were on some mission for the Sovereign,” Amenon Lepos went on, undeterred. “I came following behind as soon as I heard the news about the Sovereign. Barely avoided running head-on into the army of that guild you ran off to.”
“That would have been a poetic ending,” Terian said, lips puckered in plain agitation, “you coming up against Cyrus and Vara again. They could kill you a second time, maybe make it stick this round.”
“You brought them here,” Amenon said, drawing a very familiar red sword blade and clutching it in both hands. “You killed the Sovereign.”
“I did not,” Terian quipped, reaching for his axe, “being neither a wielder of teleportation magics nor able to presently smite a god. But I did have a hand in it, no doubt.”
“You’re a traitor,” Amenon said, voice low and hissing. “You have betrayed—”
“I didn’t betray him half as hard as he betrayed you—”
“This is not the moment to fall to discord,” Dahveed Thalless said, stepping between the two of them. “Amenon, old friend … surely you must recognize that with the Sovereign dead, certain things must be done out of necessity. Sovar will likely rise—”
“You have done terrible things this day,” Amenon said, not taking his eyes off his son. “You have unleashed a torrent that could destroy us all—”
“I can think of no group more worthy of a good destroying than the people of Saekaj—” Terian spat back.
“Well, this is pointless,” Aisling said and turned her back on the whole scene and left, drifting toward the exit at the back of the ballroom with quiet steps. She ignored the voices of escalating rage behind her, and the attempts to calm them both down. She came to the back of the ballroom and looked at the alcove where the Sovereign had sat, a perfect match for the one in his own palace, and stared at the dimness within. It gave her a sense of deja vu, a sick feeling, and she plunged forward to the edge of the darkness and found a light sheer curtain of dark cloth that she pushed aside to—
“Gyah!” she said in a frustrated whisper as she entered to find a familiar face staring at her, Genn sitting on the plush bench seat at the back of the alcove. “You scared the hells out of me!”
Genn picked up a goblet in front of him. The scent of a very bold wine filled the air as he swirled it around in his hand before bringing it up to his lips. He smacked them together afterward, as though trying to decide what he thought of it. “Yartraak and Shrawn certainly have excellent taste.”
“Approve of the vintage, do you?”
“Oh, I wasn’t just talking about the wine,” Genn said, getting to his feet and sweeping a hand to indicate the décor and furniture. “Exquisite wood paneling, imported delicacies, first-rate padding.” He ran a hand over his derriere, which was neatly covered by his leather pants. “They truly did have a grasp of the finer things.”
She listened carefully. “‘Did’? Does that mean Shrawn is dead?”
“Oh, heavens no,” Genn said with a shake of his head. “He’s still set to be quite the thorn in your side. I wouldn’t get too embroiled in matters of little concern at the moment if I were you. You might want to focus on your task at hand and worry about these other people later, if ever.”
“You read my mind,” Aisling said, ducking out of the alcove and heading toward the door at the back of the ballroom. The shouting in the foyer had ceased, but she did not stay to see why that might be the case.
She threaded through tunnels carved in the side walls of Saekaj, stumbling across servants who huddled in fear, the news of the God of Darkness’s death having reached their ears. She ignored them, opening every door, plunging ahead blindly in the warren of tunnels. The air was dank and still as any dungeon she’d ever visited, carved as deeply into ground of Arkaria as the Sovereign’s own manor.
She found a staircase at an intersection and followed it down, wondering if Shrawn would have built his manor in the style of the surface ones; living quarters up, dungeons down. This might have even preceded Shrawn, she thought as she came to iron doors with stone blocks lining the walls, opulence itself to import the artisanal objects rather than simply suffice with the existing stone. Even the dungeons are overwrought here, monuments to the richness and self-importance of this man.
This man I will kill.
She found the keys on a hook near the entry, wondering at the unguarded nature of the place. It occurred to her that guards might not have been quite so cowed as the servants into hiding, or else might simply be doing it in a different place, far from their respective duty stations. Either way, she seized the key and began unlocking doors, throwing them open. She took a candle off the wall and used it to shed light in her search.
The first three rooms were empty; the fourth held a madman who rambled as he looked at her, beard long and with a fiercely awful smell. She left him to his madness, swinging the door shut but not locking it, figuring the sound of it opening would warn her if he decided to attack her.
It was at the fifth door that she found him, peering out the small, barred window in the door. “Aisling!” he hissed when he saw her. She fumbled for the right key as she thrust it into the lock. “How?”
“The Sovereign is dead,” Aisling whispered, as though fearful of being caught. “Shrawn is not in the city. Quickly, we must leave.”
“All right.” Norenn stumbled out of the dungeon cell on unsteady legs. He wore rags only, cloth so tattered she did not know what form it had started its life as, only that now it was not fit to be so much as a sack for rotting vegetables. The smell of him was nearly the worst she had ever caught a whiff of, and he was so thin and emaciated that she feared he might fall apart.
“Come on,” she said, putting his arm around her shoulder. “We need to get out of Saekaj.”
Norenn nodded, letting her take up some of his weight. “Sovar. We have to get to Sovar.”
She blinked at him in surprise. “Sovar? Why?” Not that I wasn’t planning to go there anyway, but his fervency given his state is … surprising.
Norenn smiled, revealing that several of his teeth were missing. “Because the Sovereign is dead, yes?” When she nodded, waiting for him to elaborate, his smile broke even wider. “Because it’s time. The moment we’ve been waiting for.”
“Norenn,” Aisling said, “we’re thieves. The only moment we wait for is the one where someone leaves their door unlocked.”
He shook his head. “No, no. That was never the point, and you know it. All our talks. All our conversations—you know. Because of your upbringing.” He had the sound of the madman, just a touch, ranting now without reason, though she suspected now she knew where he was going with this. “We have to get to Sovar. Have to.”
“But why?” she asked, not sure she truly wanted the answer. He’s been imprisoned for years. Let him just want to get out, to breathe the air of his home, to see the familiar sights roughly unchanged. Let him be broken and need time to heal, to come back to himself. Don’t let him be …
“Because, don’t you see?” He was grinning uncontrollably now, urging her forward, back toward the stairs, out of this place. “Because now that he’s dead, there’s no one—no god—to stop us. The revolution is about to begin, Aisling—” Norenn’s face tightened with a fury she had not seen outside of her own, the one she hid in the abyss, and this, somehow, frightened her far more than even Shrawn did, “—and we have to be there when it does.”
54.
Terian
The timing of this encounter is as piss-poor as any Back Deep resident of Sovar, Terian thought as he stared at his father, the red sword up at high guard and his new axe up, prepared to block the coming attack. The smel
l of sweat and death was in the air, on his tongue, and it was as bitter a tonic as ever he’d tasted.
“You are a traitor to the Sovereignty,” Amenon said, “and to the Sovereign who has taken you in after you were cast out by your supposed friends—”
“After I betrayed my friends,” Terian snarled, “for you—”
“—you have wrought immeasurable harm—”
“—I’ve secured a brighter future for our people, free from the darkness that is choking us—”
“ENOUGH!” J’anda shouted, and flashed Nessalima’s light hard enough to draw every eye in the room to him. “Truly, if you two intend to murder each other, let us get on with it, please. For if not, the Sovereignty is presently without guide, though I doubt it will remain so for long.”
“Shrawn will move to consolidate his power the moment he hears about the Sovereign,” Amenon said, voice thick with accusation and resentment. “If he is not already.”
“You say that as though you’d rather not see him continuing to squat atop the structures of power here,” Terian said, darting a hard look at his father.
Amenon’s pale face did not flush, though his emotions came out in the baring of his teeth. “I would rather see you atop the Sovereignty than that treacherous dog who has so often attempted to feed my entrails to the spiders.”
“Well, that’s unlikely to happen,” Terian said, catching a hint of amusement from Kahlee, “so let’s instead think about how we want this to shake out. If the Sovereignty is going to go into chaos—”
“Saekaj will be under threat immediately,” Dahveed said, stepping into the circle of argument. “Sovar is starving, the spark of insurrection already poised to light the tinder of the lower chamber. It will not take much to start the blaze.”
“What can we even do?” Kahlee asked, throwing back her cowl to reveal blue hair – exactly as she'd had it when he'd encountered her in the markets years before, showing it as a sign of her rebellion to any noble with eyes. Terian did a double take. Where have you been hiding, wife of mine? He had already been surprised by the forceful nature of her greeting, the sincerity of her kiss; this was like a return to the old ways for her. “What can we do? Saekaj is some fifty thousand nobles while Sovar is some two million.”
“Less, now,” Terian said, “thanks to war and starvation, but still, the size of that gap is daunting, is it not?”
“They could sweep the upper chamber in a great mob,” Amenon said, looking rather sick about it for a dead man, Terian thought. “It has always been the worry—which is why the Sovereign has always been the currency that backed any action—”
“That kept the rabble down, you mean,” Terian said, letting his anger out in a slow hiss.
“You would prefer to give them free reign in Saekaj?” Amenon asked, eyebrow up. “Let them burn and plunder and steal, tear down the edifices brick by brick—”
“It’s mostly stone,” Terian offered in retort. “I’d put my gold on them burning out the wooden innards after carrying off everything of value.”
“And ravaging the women,” Amenon said.
“Sovar is mostly women at this point,” Kahlee said. “Women and the infirm. I expect they’d leave off ravishing, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see mobs burning their social betters out of sheer resentment and anger at the countless years of mistreatment.”
“Wonderful,” Amenon said, throwing up his hands. “Thousands of years of civilization, of order, and it should be torn down and surrendered in the face of a screeching mob—”
“There was always going to be a reckoning,” Terian said. “For what we did, how we held them down—”
“There was not going to be any such thing,” Amenon snapped, “until you removed the block that kept that particular cart from rolling down at us—”
“It’s really more like a waste pond,” Grinnd said in his low, cultured tone, “with the dam removed, I think—”
“However you want to order the example,” Kahlee said, shouting them down once more, “Sovar will rise. That seems inevitable. Force of arms will be the only thing that keeps them out of Saekaj—”
“We should cut them off from the surface as well,” Amenon said, voice hard and unyielding. “If they have to starve for another week or two, that’ll take the starch out of their desire to murder us all—”
“My urge to murder you is rising by the moment—” Terian said, fury spitting loose of his mouth.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Kahlee said, shaking her head. She began to walk away, and for a moment, the clamor between Terian and his father died down. She turned to look back at them. “Don’t you see? When Shrawn returns, he won’t be arguing, because he has no one to argue with. He’ll march whatever troops are loyal to him right into the mouth of these caves, block access to Sovar and do what Amenon’s suggesting. They will starve Sovar.”
“Unless they rise in insurrection,” Grinnd suggested, “before Shrawn can position his forces.”
“Which is a distinct possibility,” Dahveed said. “These resentments have simmered for more years than I can count. Many in Sovar have been waiting for a moment just such as this.”
Terian felt a tightness in his temple and looked to J’anda, whose face was drawn in pensive thought. “What the hell do we do?”
The enchanter shrugged. “The problem is one of two chambers, two cities. Saekaj has always been the one atop the ladder, content to toss its garbage and shite down upon the rungs below with the Sovereign’s blessings. Sovar has not taken that abuse with grace, and with the Sovereign out of the picture, I imagine they will awaken to possibilities they have not seriously considered before—”
“Such as a eating a good meal,” Dahveed added.
“Saekaj wishes to remain atop the heap,” J’anda said. “Sovar wishes to not remain at the bottom, in plainest terms. Force of arms would be used by Saekaj to preserve the status quo, force of mob would be Sovar’s answer to change it.” He shrugged again. “As you said, a reckoning, one way or the other.”
“Is anyone under the illusion that a mob turned loose on Saekaj would be a good thing?” Amenon asked.
“The citizens of Sovar probably think so,” Terian said without any heat whatsoever.
“It will ultimately gain them nothing except a few meals and some trinkets,” Amenon snapped. “There isn’t that much food hoarded here, certainly not enough to feed two million people. The granaries will be empty in a week, until the new production by the slaves above—” He halted as he caught the quickly exchanged look between Terian and J’anda. “What?”
“I wouldn’t count on there being any slaves,” J’anda said. “The Sanctuary army was on their way to free them.”
Amenon stepped closer to J’anda, breathing death at the enchanter. “Without slave labor working the crops … we will all starve.”
“Don’t get dramatic,” Terian said. “It’s the middle of winter. No one’s even thinking of putting down a harvest at the moment.”
“Are you—?” Amenon put his fingers over his eyes.
“Somewhat sick of seeing people squashed and squatted on by this nation?” Terian asked. “Why, yes. Yes, I am.” He took a step forward. “Why can’t we build something new here? Something that doesn’t lean so hard on Sovar and slaves to prop up the nobles?”
“Because you’ll never get the nobles in line to do so,” Kahlee said, almost apologetically.
“Then maybe they should content themselves with dying under the flailing fists and feet of pissed-off, starving citizens of Sovar,” Terian returned.
“I have no time for debate,” J’anda said, sweeping his cloak behind him.
“Apparently neither did the other one,” Kahlee said, frowning. “Looks like she snuck off.”
Terian caught J’anda’s eye and saw the weary resignation there. “It’s her way. But not yours. Where are you going?”
“I came back to this place for two reasons,” J’anda said, gathering his robes around
him. “One was to end the Sovereign’s reign and threat to the world. The other,” his face grew dark, “was to enjoy revenge on Vracken Coeltes, who twisted the Sovereign against me. One part of my mission is finished.” The enchanter headed for the front door, passing around Grinnd, who bowed his head politely as J’anda passed. “The other remains yet to be done.” He disappeared out of the manor house, as quietly as Aisling.
“So it’s back to us again,” Terian said, turning his gaze to look back at his father, the pale, dead flesh on his face showing none of the rot he’d seen on the other undead. “And arguing over the same ground.”
“We need a plan,” Kahlee said, imploring. “One that takes into account what will come from both chambers, what is going to happen here. One that figures Dagonath Shrawn’s inevitable machinations into the game—”
“We might not want to do it here, then,” Dahveed said, smiling as ever. “Perhaps somewhere less attached to Shrawn?”
“We should return to my house,” Kahlee said, and Terian saw the fire of anger smolder in Amenon’s eyes at the mere suggestion. “My father should be there. We need to include him in this matter. He can help.”
“Many could help,” Terian said, looking around the fine wood of Shrawn’s entryway, up the steps to the second floor that he had never gotten around to searching. “But finding people who want Saekaj and Sovar to come out of this fight without one ripping the other to pieces … now that is going to be more than a little challenging.”
55.
J’anda
The streets were crowded with milling people, and loud noises still made their way down the tunnels and through the gates of Saekaj. J’anda listened as he walked, but the bustle of the mob was enough to drown out all but the loudest clamor from the caves beyond the upper chamber. People were panicking in the streets, rejoicing in the streets—every emotion along the spectrum was on display, even a small amount of looting, though the predations of a servant’s child were ended quickly under the canes of a dozen dandies. J’anda spun a spell around them to stop the rapid rise and fall of their blunt instruments as he passed, silently exhorting the boy to go home, and watching him rush off into the crowd, surprisingly unrepentant.
Sanctuary 5.5 - Fated in Darkness Page 27