Age of Asango - Book II

by Matt Russell

  "Brother!" Cassian screamed. He ran forward, tears already welling in his eyes. He could feel cold death seeping through Dimitris’s young body faster than any healing spell could repair, and he knew even before he found the bloody mess of flesh lying on the grass some thirty paces back from the explosion that he had killed his brother.

  Cassian heard cheers erupt all around him as he knelt down and clutched Dimitris's limp body in his arms. He felt his brother die there and then, all the great beauty of his life fading to nothing... because Cassian Asango had killed him.

  "Oh, Gods!" Cassian whispered. He stared down at the now still, disfigured face. It was the most horrible moment of his life.

  Chapter 12:

  The Weight of Sin

  Somar sat quietly across the table from Cassian as the sunlight grew dim in the windows. The boy had not spoken in hours. After defeating Dimitris, he had simply walked to his tent and sat down on his cot exactly where he was. Somar had sat with him in silence for most of the day, knowing that Cassian needed him. The first kill was a terrible thing for anyone to endure, but even more so for those who possessed the depth of mind that his beloved pupil did.

  "This is what the emperor wished," Cassian said abruptly in a dry whisper, staring down at the table.

  "Yes, it was," Somar said.

  "The matter could have been decided without death. Dimitris was brilliant. Even if he did not become emperor, he could have made enormous contributions to this world."

  "Yes, he could have."

  Cassian's eyes shifted up and met Somar's. They were fierce. "Why did I have to kill him?"

  "I do not know. It is possible that the church had some hand in this. Perhaps they presumed their golden Starborn would win and rid them of you. Still, it is unlikely they were the sole puppeteers. The way Romulus was speaking to Dimitris… he would not dare such a thing unless instructed to do so by the emperor himself."

  "Agreed," said Cassian his voice sharp. "But again, why?” He rolled his eyes. “I felt the Emperor watching our battle. Tacitus observes me all the time, but I know nothing of his mind.”

  "You will, I think. There is very little question now who will be named as crown prince and heir." This assumption flowed from Somar's longstanding acceptance that Arkas, the Emperor's own son, was not a true contender. The question as to why this was had never been answered, but Somar had blindly believed it for so long that it now felt like a given.

  Cassian made a dark smile, but almost instantly his eyes moistened. A pair of tears dripped down his face. "I killed my brother, just like Keska said I would."

  "He challenged you."

  Cassian shot up from the cot. "Yes! And I took his life!" He took several slow, seething breaths, and then said through clenched teeth: "It was a horrible death. I felt his terror as he went." Cassian sank back to the cot, more tears rolling down his face, though his expression was hard.

  "You will bear this for the rest of your life, Cassian,” Somar said, and he moved to his pupil’s cot and sat next to him. "Many a soldier has felt what you are feeling, including me. I will not lie to you. The guilt will be horrible. You shall relive the moment hundreds of times in your mind. It will be a long, long time before you will feel anything resembling happiness again, but you must live with the consequences of your actions. You owe that much to the empire now—you owe it even to Dimitris." He put a hand on Cassian's shoulder. "Take this time to grieve, because you need to, but understand that there is no escaping what happened today, and so you must be strong."

  To Somar's surprise, this elicited wheezing laughter from the Cassian. Even as tears dripped down the young man’s face, he shook his head with a troubled smile.

  "What?" said Somar.

  "Funny that you should use those exact words," the boy whispered. He gazed down at his legs and said: "Did I ever tell you about the day my mother died, old man?"

  "We have never spoken of it except when we first met."

  Cassian let out a long sigh, a mixture of intense emotions playing across his features. "I was eleven. I did not know that I was a Starborn yet, but my mother and I both possessed exceptionally strong talent in magic. It was a bond we shared. My father did not possess the sorcerer's gift, but he did have a fine title in the empire and a great deal of land, so I inherited much from both of them." Cassian chuckled: "Parents with magical bloodlines sometimes have to produce twenty children before conceiving a single sorcerer, but my mother gave birth to a Starborn on her first go."

  The boy swallowed, gazing up at the ceiling of the tent. "She was such an amazing woman. She spoke nine languages and possessed an almost preternatural capacity for mathematics, science, and history. We were telepathically linked even when I was a young child, and much of that information glided from her mind to mine, as did the essence of her beautiful heart. I loved her more than anything in the world."

  Cassian's eyes filled with hatred as he said: "They took her and my father in the middle of the night. Twenty-three men came. Four of them were sorcerers, six of them had tattoos, and the rest were militiamen from the next village over. Our guards just let them in. No one stands in the way of the church. I felt them rip her from her bed, and I tried very clumsily to attack them. One of the sorcerers hurled me back into a wall and knocked me unconscious with a bit of magic I could now counter with a thought.

  "When I woke up, they were already long gone. My telepathic connection to my mother reestablished itself as soon as my eyes opened though and... I felt them... torturing her. They were trying to force her to write a confession and repent. My father... he was a kind man, but not a brave one. He confessed quickly to all manner of humanist sin, such as failing to pray to Mother Esuna for a good harvest and instead having his farmers rely on crop rotation and irrigation techniques. They rewarded him with a quick slice to the throat. My mother though... she knew those horrible bastards were going to kill her no matter what. She held out for days, giving them nothing. It pained her to know that I was watching all of it, and she tried to push me away, but even then, my telepathy surpassed hers. I stayed connected to her every minute of the three days they had her, right up until the moment that they gave her one final chance to confess and then cut her head from her body. I felt her die then."

  Cassian paused, and a fresh set of tears dripped down his face. His voice was surprisingly even when he resumed: "In the last instant before her life was stolen, she whispered to me: ‘You must be strong, Cassian.’ I was not strong though. Her death ripped a hole in me larger than anything I had ever imagined. I was overcome with sorrow to such an extent that I believed going on to be impossible." He rolled his eyes at Somar and said: "At eleven years old, I decided to kill myself. I snuck away from the castle that night and went up into the mountains to the north. I hiked up for hours in the darkness to a peak I knew…to throw myself off, so I could join my parents."

  Cassian gazed down at the table then and a long moment of silence passed. Eventually, Somar said: "What stopped you?"

  "Nothing. I jumped." Cassian shut his eyes as if sinking into the memory. "I leaped outward and felt the wind and gravity take me. Immediately, I saw jagged rock rushing up. It was at that moment, when I looked death in the face and felt terror rip through every cell in my body, that my world changed. All the barriers in my mind shattered. I felt myself fill up with more magic than I had ever known, and suddenly I could sense the world around me—the Universe—in ways I had never dreamed. All of it happened in a fraction of a second, but in that instant, I understood exactly what I was. I heard my mother's words in my mind once again: You must be strong, Cassian, and I willed myself to cease falling and came to a stop in the air. I think that was the greatest moment of clarity in my life. I knew I was a Starborn, and I knew what that meant. I could become emperor if I dedicated myself completely to the goal." Cassian blinked. "That was when I decided the purpose of the rest of my life."

  He smiled. "I am the youngest Starborn ever to reach th
e ascension to my powers, though in doing so I dragged Dimitris, Telemachus, Keska, and even that little wretch Arkas into ascension a few seconds later. None of us were ready for the profound connection we experienced in that moment, but it came nonetheless, and they all felt my pain, my anger, and my determination smash through ancient and sacred barriers that had never before been broken for ones so young as we.” Cassian swallowed dryly, then added: “That is why they are all afraid of me."

  Somar reflected on this and said nothing but continued to gaze at his pupil. The boy seemed not to be finished speaking, and Somar was contented to let him say whatever else he wished.

  "At first I only wanted to stop the Nemesai,” Cassian eventually resumed. “My plan was simple: become emperor and outlaw religious persecution. As I grew older though, and my telepathic mind began to reach all over the world, I started to see other things that were as ugly and unjust as what had happened to my family. The church is only allowed to do what it does because the masses are too weak, too poverty-stricken, and too uneducated to challenge what is being done to them. The vast majority of humans on this planet live their entire lives under the oppression of a cruel and greedy aristocratic class. Their existences are used up in labor so that a handful of wealthy, intermarried families can bathe in luxury and power and live well above the very laws they use to strangle their subjects." He gritted his teeth. "I realized it was all part of the same disease. The way this empire governs is wrong—all of it! My parents dared to explore humanism, and the church broke into my house, took my mother from her bed, tortured her for days and then cut her head off and it was LEGAL!" As he screamed the final word the table in front of him snapped in half.

  Cassian took several slow, cautious breaths, stilling himself. Then he said: "I knew I would have to play the game though. It was the only way I could possibly achieve my goals within my lifetime. It would be absurd for some angry young man to try to overthrow the largest government in the world, but a boy who had a one-in-five chance of achieving close to absolute authority in that government might actually succeed." Cassian swallowed. "But I also knew... or came to learn, that Dimitris would never let me have the throne without a fight."

  "It was always going to come to a battle between the two of you," Somar said in as soft a voice as he could manage, "and you must not ever forget that it was he who challenged you."

  "It was the most terrible thing I have ever done, and I was manipulated into it—both of us were." He gazed down, his green eyes alive with anger, yet he breathed quite softly, and his body had ceased to tremble. Somar could almost see him hardening his heart, as he had seen men do many times after they took life. "You warned me it would be like this—that the empire is run by ruthless, cunning men. General Romulus was grinning as we walked off to kill each other." Cassian’s eyes lifted and met Somar's in an iron stare. "I have stepped into the pit of snakes, and now they have begun to slither around me. They have not realized yet that I am the snake with the biggest teeth."

  Chapter 13:

  The Foretold Weapon

  Arkas gazed nervously as the burning sun began to disappear behind the rooftops of the backwater city. He had been sitting on the stone bench in front of the sundial for hours, just as instructed. There were only a few moments left for the Norn's prophecy to be fulfilled. He squirmed under the tension, thumping the heels of his fine boots into dirt and crabgrass. This was the correct date and the correct time, and he had had to construct a careful excuse about family business to his master, Bishop Cromlic, to leave the capital. Yet as he gazed around with not only his eyes but his Starborn senses, he detected nothing out of the ordinary, which was troubling.

  So many thoughts were racing through his mind. Cassian had killed Dimitris... On one hand, Dimitris had been an obstacle in Arkas's path to the throne, yet on the other, it was not Dimitris who had been prophesized to kill Arkas. Cassian Asango will challenge you to a duel. You will lose. The words had echoed in his mind for years, and every time Cassian overcame death, that prophecy seemed more inevitable. Still, the Norn had promised him a weapon that could kill his father. Surely it would have to be something of truly awesome power to overcome the great Emperor Tacitus. It was going to fall into his lap, or so she had said. Arkas's eyes shifted about, scanning the streets and the sky and fixing often on the crudely carved stone sundial. The thing was speckled with bits of moss and bird droppings—hardly the backdrop he might imagine for receiving a weapon of prophecy.

  He watched a few peasants walking about, plodding along in their simple lives. Most of the city's people had returned to their homes for the evening, and the few still out had no idea they were standing in the presence of a living miracle, or the importance of what was about to happen. Or would it happen? Could the Norn have lied? She was a notoriously cunning and deceptive creature, but the Enumis stated many times that she was incapable of actually lying. But then... where had those words in the holy book come from? Most had been spoken by the Norn herself.

  Arkas choked on his doubt. There was so little time left! He gazed out at the beams of sunlight filtering through the alleys of the ugly buildings and watched with mounting panic as they grew dimmer and dimmer. His eyes shifted up to the harvest moon. It was already visible in the sky, and even the faintest trickles of the stars were beginning to appear.

  A cold terror crept through his flesh as the sun finally set. Arkas jerked his head and began to gaze around again. Why was it not appearing?! Years of his life had centered around this single moment. He had taken steps against his own father and enslaved himself to the cruel leader of the Nemesai because of the Norn's promise. Yet the sky was turning to black, and he felt not even a trickle of power around him save from the energy pulsing in the tattoos of the men he had hiding in nearby alleys. He gazed back at one of them, Dunlin, a hulking murderer he had rescued from his father's gallows. The man met his eyes from under the hood that concealed his heavily marked face. Dunlin knew nothing. Of course he knew nothing! Arkas felt confusion in the brute man, and it mingled with his own. He felt furious. This had all been a cruel joke!

  "OH!" a female voice shrieked, and Arkas turned around just in time to see a girl stumble backward. She fell across his lap, and his right arm moved reflexively to catch her. She turned to him, a pretty young thing with wild brown hair. "I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. As she spoke the words, his eyes shifted to the tattoo running down her cheek. It was the mark of a slave, but it had two curving lateral lines across the neck denoting that she had been legally freed.

  Arkas clutched the girl’s shoulder, excitement rippling through him. "It's you!" he hissed.

  Her young face grimaced and turned to glance at the hand that clutched her. She looked back at Arkas and said: "D-do I know you, sir?"

  He made a quick scan of the girl's mind. If she was the weapon, she did not seem to know anything about it. Her head was filled with simple thoughts about preparing food and folding clothing, and of a childish kind of peasant love for her family. As he read all of this, her name appeared in his mind: Iona Sondal. "What's going on?" he said. He tightened his grip on the girl. "Are you hiding it from me somehow? I warn you, do not try to deceive me!"

  This Iona's eyes widened, and she cried: "I—I don't know what you are talking about, sir! Please, there must be some kind of misunderstanding!"

  Bewildered, Arkas began to focus all of his magical senses upon the trembling girl, but just as he did, a thin hand closed on the wrist that gripped her and gave a sharp yank. He had not expected this, and it was enough to pry his grip loose. Iona wriggled off of his lap, and he turned and glared up at a second girl with the markings of a former slave, this one tall and blond and utterly beautiful. Her blue eyes stared fiercely at him. By reflex, he reached out to her mind to ascertain if she knew some secret about Iona, but his psychic tendrils encountered a shockingly powerful mental wall—one so strong it almost reminded him of Cassian's.

  The blond girl's face filled with fear at hi
s mental touch. She drew back, looking as though she were going to scream, yet no sound came out. Iona scurried to her and looked nervously back at Arkas, whimpering: "P-please don't hurt us!"

  She would not get away! Arkas rose and waved his right hand. There was a shuffling of feet from behind. Dunlin and his other man came bounding up. Iona gave a little shriek as Dunlin's tattooed hand took hold of her wrist. He twisted her arm up behind her back and then brought a knife up to her throat with his free hand and hissed: "Don't move—don't make a sound." Iona whimpered but did not speak.

  Arkas's other man, Stavros, a cruel but incredibly efficient mercenary he had acquired in the North, drew a dagger and pointed it at the blond girl, who had gone very pale, and said: "Do I cut her throat?"

  Arkas gazed around. The city street was relatively empty, but a few townspeople had stopped to gape at what was happening, and one man was running away, probably to call the city guards. Arkas lifted his left hand in the direction of the fleeing peasant and said: "Aradrak!"

  Instantly Arkas's magic flared from his palm and formed into a blazing green orb of death. The ball whipped through the air and struck the man in the side. His body changed direction abruptly and slammed into the back wall of a building. He bounced and fell limp to the street.

  Iona gave a little shriek, but Dunlin jerked her body and hissed: "Quiet!" She fell silent.

  Arkas turned his gaze to the trembling blond girl, though he spoke to his underling: "Stavros, I need you to cover our escape. I wish to leave quietly."

  "Understood," Stavros said in an icy voice. He pulled a concealed sword from under his heavy cloak and dashed toward the remaining two witnesses. Arkas shifted his gaze to Iona and gestured to the silent girl. "Is she your sister?" he said.

  "Y-yes, sir," Iona squeaked.

  Arkas hesitated, considering, then whispered: "It has to be you. I have no use for her."