by Anthony Ryan
Visiting Master Benril was not one of Alucius’s favourite obligations, a task to be undertaken as infrequently as his conscience allowed, usually when images of Alornis loomed largest in his mind. He found the old master hard at work on the western wall, a ragged and burnt eyesore in the aftermath of the city’s fall, marking the apex of the palace’s destruction, now covered in fresh marble from end to end. Benril was accompanied by a portly, balding slave, older than most but spared execution by virtue of his skill with stone, and his expert knowledge of where to find more. He rarely spoke more than a few words, the overseers having been given no injunction about applying the whip to his back, but revealed a highborn’s cultured vowels when he did. Alucius had yet to learn the man’s name, and in truth avoided doing so. Slaves could never be relied upon to live long enough to make any association worthwhile.
“Coming along rather nicely, Master,” he greeted Benril, calling up to the second tier of the scaffolding where the sculptor laboured to craft the great relief depicting Darnel’s glorious victory over the Realm Guard.
Benril left off hammering to glance over his shoulder. He offered no greeting but gave an irritated flick of his hand, granting leave for Alucius to ascend the ladder. Alucius always marvelled at the speed with which they worked, the portly slave guiding a rasp over recently completed carvings as Benril continued to birth more from virgin stone. Only one month into Darnel’s vainglorious project and it was a quarter complete, the finely carved figures emerging from the stone in accordance with the vast cartoon Benril had unrolled before the Fief Lord’s approving eye.
Perhaps his greatest work, Alucius mused, watching Benril chisel away at the heroic profile of a Renfaelin knight in combat with a cringing Realm Guard. And it’s all a lie.
“What is it?” Benril asked, leaving off from his carving for a moment, reaching for a nearby earthenware bottle.
“Merely my regular assurance that both Aspects remain alive and unmolested,” Alucius replied. It had been the master’s price that day they dragged him before the Fief Lord, merely raising an eyebrow at Darnel’s promises of torture or swift execution, only becoming compliant when his threats turned to the Aspects. For all his disdain for custom and propriety, Benril remained a man of the Faith.
The master nodded, drinking from the bottle and passing it to the slave. The man cast a cautious eye at Twenty-Seven before taking a swift drink, returning to his work with determined haste. Alucius retrieved the bottle, removing the stopper and sniffing the contents. Just water.
“I hear tell of a hidden stock of wine,” he told Benril. “If you would care for some.”
“Wine dulls the senses and makes the mediocre artist imagine himself a great one.” Benril spared him a hard glance before returning to his work. “A truism with which you are intimately acquainted, I believe.”
“It has been, as ever, a great pleasure, Master.” Alucius gave an unheeded bow and returned to the ladder, pausing to cast an eye over Benril’s bony but still-strong back, his rope-thin, muscle-knotted arms moving in expert rhythm as they worked the stone. “There was one other thing,” he added. “It seems Master Grealin had taken up with a band of fighters in the forest. You recall Master Grealin? Great, fat fellow who minded the Sixth Order’s stores.”
“What of it?” Benril asked, continuing to chisel away.
Alucius kept his eyes on Benril’s hands. “He died.”
It was barely a slip, merely the slightest irregularity left in a carving of wondrous execution. But it was too deep to sand away, a timeless testament to a brief lapse of concentration.
“Many have died,” Benril said, not turning. “With many more to come when Lord Al Sorna gets here.”
The portly slave dropped his rasp, casting a fearful glance at Twenty-Seven before quickly retrieving it. Nearby, one of the overseers turned towards them, his hand going to the coiled whip at his side.
“Please have a care, Master Benril,” Alucius told him. “I take no pleasure in the prospect of describing your death to the woman I love.”
Benril still refused to turn, his hands once again moving with the same effortless precision. “Don’t you have some wine to find?”
It took several attempts before he identified the correct ruin, unearthing a blackened wooden sign from beneath a pile of tumbled brick, the lettering burnt to nothing but the crudely rendered image of a boar visible through the scorching. “Yes,” he agreed with Twenty-Seven. “I am fully aware this is probably a fool’s errand, thank you. Help me shift this stone.”
They worked for over an hour before he found it, clearing rubble away from the floorboards to reveal only a faint outline under the dust; a rectangle about a yard square. “A bottle or two of Wolf’s Blood would indeed be very welcome,” he told Twenty-Seven, wiping the dust away to reveal the hidden entrance, his fingers probing the edges. “Too tight a fit. Use your sword to prize it open.”
Twenty-Seven went about the task with his usual unhesitant obedience, jamming his short sword into the edge of the door and levering it up, the strain of the effort plain in the bulge of muscle on his arms, though his face remained as impassive as ever. Alucius took hold of the edge of the door as it came free, hauling it open all the way, revealing a horizontal drop into blank darkness.
He had had the foresight to bring a lamp and lit it now, then lay flat to lower it into the opening, the yellow glow illuminating only a tunnel of rough stone, free of any telltale gleam of glass.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t fancy it much either, my friend. But a man must follow his passions, don’t you think?” He moved back from the hole and waved at the slave. “You first.”
Twenty-Seven stared back and said nothing.
“Faith!” Alucius muttered, handing him the lamp. “If I die down there, they’ll whip you to death. You know that, I trust.”
He took hold of the edge of the hole and lowered himself in, hanging from his fingertips then dropping into the blackness below, finding the air musty and stale. Twenty-Seven landed nimbly at his side a second later, the lamplight illuminating a tunnel of uninviting length.
“There best be some Cumbraelin red at the end of this,” Alucius said. “Otherwise I shall be forced to say some very harsh words to Aspect Elera. Some very harsh words indeed.”
They followed the tunnel for no more than the span of a few minutes, though the echoing footfalls and absolute dark beyond the limit of the lamp’s meagre glow made it seem considerably longer, as did Alucius’s growing conviction that there was no wine to be found here. “I don’t care what you insist upon,” he hissed at Twenty-Seven. “I will not simply turn back now.”
Finally the tunnel opened out into a broad circular chamber, Alucius drawing up short at the fine brickwork contrasting with the rough stone walls of the tunnel. The chamber was ringed by seven stone pillars and shallow steps descending to a flat base in the centre of which stood a long table. Alucius went to the table, playing the lamp over the surface and finding it free of dust.
“On second thoughts,” he said. “Perhaps you have a p—”
A sudden whisper of disturbed air and the lamp shattered in his hand, flaming oil scattering onto the stone before blinking out, darkness descending with dreadful speed. Alucius heard Twenty-Seven’s sword scrape free of its scabbard then nothing, no clash of steel or grunt of pain. Just the darkness and the silence.
“I…” he began, swallowed and tried again. “I don’t suppose you have any wine.”
Something cold and hard pressed against his neck, positioned precisely above the vein he knew would see him dead in a few heartbeats should it suffer even a small puncture. “Aspect Elera!” Alucius said in a rapid exhalation. “She sent me.”
A pause then the blade disappeared from his neck. “Sister,” a female voice said, smooth and cultured but also hard and clipped. “Light the torches. Brother, don’t kill the other one just yet.”
“Alucius Al Hestian.” The young woman regarded him fro
m across the table with a steady and not especially welcoming expression. “I’ve read your poems. My master thought them the finest works of modern Asraelin verse.”
“Clearly a man of some taste and education,” Alucius replied, casting a furtive glance at Twenty-Seven, crouched into a fighting stance, his sword moving back and forth in a slow parody of combat. On either side of him stood a man and a woman, both young like the woman seated at the table. The woman was plump and short with a large rat perched on her shoulder. The man was taller, well-built and wearing a heavily besmirched City Guard uniform. The plump woman regarded Alucius with a faint smile whilst the guardsman ignored him, staring fixedly at Twenty-Seven and his slothful sword play.
“Actually,” the young woman at the table said, “I found them cloyingly sentimental and overly florid.”
“Must have been my early work,” Alucius said, turning back to her. Her face was finely featured, a narrow aquiline nose and a softly pointed chin, her hair a pleasing shade of honey blond, and her eyes set in a cold stare of hostile appraisal.
“Your father’s a traitor, poet,” she stated.
“My father is forced to hateful duty by his love for me,” he returned. “Kill me if you would have him abandon it.”
“How noble.” The young woman spread her fingers on the table where a line of small steel darts were arranged in a neat arc. “And a wish easily granted, should I find you less than honest.”
The plump woman came forward, her rat running the length of her arm to jump onto the tabletop, scurrying over to Alucius, snout raised to sniff at his sleeve. “Don’t smell a lie on his sweat,” she advised the young woman in coarse, street-born tones.
“My sweat?” Alucius asked, feeling a fresh trickle of it trace down his back.
“Liar’s sweat’s gotta sting to it,” the plump woman advised. “Beyond us but Blacknose here smells it well enough.”
She extended her hand and the rat trotted over to her, jumping into her arms and settling into a contented huddle.
The Dark, Alucius thought. How delighted Lyrna would have been to see this. He forced the thought away; remembrance of Lyrna was painful and likely to provoke distracting grief at a time when he should be focused on continued survival. “Who are you people?” he asked the young woman.
She stared back in silence for a moment then raised her left hand, the fingers flat and level. She blinked and one of the darts rose from the table, hovering no more than an inch from her index finger. “Ask another question,” she said. “And this goes in your eye.”
“Can we move this along, sister?” the guardsman said in a strained voice. “This one’s mind is easily clouded but I can’t do it forever.”
The young woman blinked again and the dart slowly descended to the table. She clasped her hands together, her eyes unwavering from Alucius. “Aspect Elera sent you?”
“Yes.”
“What is her condition?”
“She resides in the Blackhold. Unharmed, save a raw ankle and sore need of a bath.”
“What did she tell you of us?”
“That you had wine.” Alucius risked a glance around the chamber. “I’m guessing she lied about that.”
“She did,” the young woman replied. “We also have scant food or water remaining and our forays into the city above yield us nothing.”
“I can bring food. Medicine too, should you need it. I assume that was her true purpose in sending me…” He paused to draw breath. “In sending me to the Seventh Order.”
The young woman angled her head, mouth twisting in a sardonic smile. “You speak of legends, poet.”
“Oh, what difference do it make now?” the plump woman said, moving to stand behind her sister. “You’ve got the right of it, y’lordship. I’m Sister Inehla, she’s Sister Cresia, and that over there is Brother Rhelkin. All that remains of the Seventh Order in this fair city.”
Alucius gestured at their surroundings. “And this place?”
“Once a temple to the Orders,” Sister Cresia replied. “Built before such frippery was expunged from the Faith. Our brothers in the Sixth Order found it some years ago, a hide for criminals, subsequently put to better purpose.”
Alucius turned to obtain a better view of Twenty-Seven and Brother Rhelkin, noting the strain on the guardsman’s face as the slave continued to move his sword as if through treacle. “What is he doing to him?”
“Making him see what he needs him to see,” Cresia said. “We’ve found it’s their principal weakness, those like him and his less deadly cousins. Minds so empty are easily clouded. He thinks he’s fighting a horde of assassins, come to spill your blood. Brother Rhelkin can also control the speed of the vision, making it last an hour or a second.”
“But not,” Rhelkin added through gritted teeth, “forever.”
Alucius turned back to Cresia. “Food and water,” he said. “What else do you need?”
“News of the war would be welcome.”
“The Volarian fleet sent to the Meldenean Isles suffered some form of calamitous defeat. Tokrev is poised to take Alltor and Darnel has ridden out with his knights to hunt down the Red Brother.”
“Lord Al Sorna?”
Alucius shook his head. “No word as yet.”
Cresia sighed and rose from the table. “When will you return?”
“Two days, if you can wait that long. Gathering extra provisions without raising suspicion takes time.”
She nodded at Twenty-Seven. “Should we kill this one?”
“His only task is to protect me or kill me should I step outside the city. In all other regards he is blind and dumb.”
She nodded. “I’m trusting you because Aspect Elera would not have sent you without reason.” She opened a pouch at her belt and the darts on the table rose to balance on their blunt ends before arching into the pouch in a precise sequence, making Alucius smile at the elegant impossibility of it.
“The night the city fell,” Cresia added. “I lost count of the men I killed with these, and other things besides. I bled myself white with killing and would have died if my sister hadn’t found me and brought me here. Know well, poet, if you abuse our trust, I’ll drain every drop of blood in my body to kill you.”
He found his father at the gate to the North Road, deep in counsel with the Volarian Division Commander as a battalion of Free Swords laboured to dig a deep ditch behind the wall.
“Lamp oil?” the Volarian was asking as Alucius approached, halting at a respectful distance, though still close enough to hear their discussion.
“As much as you can gather,” Lakrhil Al Hestian replied. “Enough to fill this ditch from end to end.”
The Volarian looked at the map spread out before them, scanning the lines depicting the walls and the country beyond. Alucius indulged some faint hope the man had enough arrogance to disregard his father’s counsel, but sadly, he again proved himself no fool. “Very well,” he said. “Have you chosen where to site the engines?”
Alucius’s father pointed to several points on the map as the Volarian nodded approval. “However,” Lakrhil said, “I will of course need engines to site.”
“They will be here in thirty days,” the Division Commander assured him. “Together with a thousand Varitai and three hundred more Kuritai. The Council has not abandoned us.”
If Lakrhil Al Hestian took any comfort from the man’s words, he failed to show it. “An army can travel far in thirty days,” he said. “Especially an army fuelled by love of a resurrected queen.”
Alucius stifled his gasp lest it draw the Volarian’s anger, his heart hammering worse than in the darkness below the ruined inn. She lives?
Mirvek straightened, fixing his father with a hard glare. “A lie told by cowards seeking to excuse failure,” he stated in unequivocal tones. “And that’s what you’ll tell your king when he returns. Whoever leads this rabble is not your queen.”
His father replied only with the slightest of nods. Alucius had yet to see him bow t
o any Volarian. The Division Commander gave him a final glare and turned to march away, his aides scurrying to keep up. Alucius approached his father with his heart still pounding. “Queen?” he asked.
“So it’s said.” Al Hestian didn’t look up from the map. “Restored to life, and apparently beauty by Dark means. If it’s really her. I’d not put it past Al Sorna to find a double somewhere and make her a figurehead.”
Vaelin too? And if he comes, then so too does Alornis. “What of Tokrev? Alltor?”
“Killed and saved. A messenger arrived from Warnsclave this morning. It seems every man in Tokrev’s army lies slaughtered and a great army marches north at the word of a Dark-blessed queen. My son, it seems you are shortly to be provided an ending to your poem.”
Alucius took a breath, turning from the map to look at the Free Swords labouring in the ditch. “Aren’t ditches normally dug outside the walls?”
“They are,” his father replied. “And if time allows, I’ll dig one there too, for the sake of appearances. The real defence is here.” He tapped the map with the barbed spike protruding from his right sleeve and Alucius saw an intricate web of black lines tracing through the maze of streets, streets that no longer existed. “A series of barriers, choke points, fire traps and so on. Al Sorna’s cunning enough, but he can’t work miracles. This city will be his army’s grave.”
“My lord,” Alucius spoke softly, moving to his father’s side. “I beg you…”
“We have spoken on this matter already.” His father’s tone was absolute, implacable. “I lost one son, I’ll not lose another.”