The High King's Vengeance

by Steven Poore

  Save me, she prayed weakly. I cannot do this.

  “Now you see,” the god said, and there was both anger and satisfaction in his voice. “Now, at last, do you understand, girl? Do you see what that ever-cursed night did to me?”

  Cassia could barely move enough to shake her head. There was still too much to take in, too much that was unclear. She did not want to understand.

  The torch smouldered, the heat it produced no more than that of last night’s coals. There was still a flame to be kindled, but there was no fuel left in Malessar’s reserves.

  “You cannot be,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

  “Oh, but I can. I can, and I am.” The thin fingers of her father’s hand curled across Cassia’s matted hair. “I am Pyraete. God of the North. Prisoner of the North. And now, at last, prisoner no more.”

  Cassia could not look up. She wanted to scream.

  “The warlock called upon me,” the god said. “He used my blessing to bring down Caenthell. And then he betrayed my service entirely and found patronage elsewhere. Even for that, I might have forgiven him. Eventually. Perhaps. But his actions hurt me. They left me vulnerable. And others called upon me too. They begged vengeance, in my name. They sought my blessing for actions against that which I had already wrought.”

  Baum, Cassia thought. He had sworn his life against Malessar.

  Her father knelt by her shoulder. “Push and pull. Open and closed. East and West. These things cannot be reconciled. You cannot be both. I, a god, could not be both! But so have I been, for an endless age. Both within Caenthell and without it. Destruction and revenge. Death and life.”

  He touched her cheek. Cassia felt cold bone drawing life from her.

  “Madness. An age of madness. I festered, alone. I fought the curse. I became the curse. I fed upon the last remnants of Jedrell’s rage. And at the same time I watched my servant in the world beyond, and I dreamed of all he could touch. All he could see. I fought wars alongside him whilst at the very same time I withered here. It shames me to say it, but I wept. Yes girl, I wept.”

  She could barely feel herself breathing now. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  The god’s voice softened, but there was still a quality of madness within it. The centuries of partial imprisonment had tainted him irrevocably. “And now, at last, I am released. And I have you to thank. You, who came back for me.”

  Once again it was unclear whether he thought of her as Aliciana or as Cassia, Norrow’s daughter. “It was not for you.”

  “Oh, but it was,” the god argued. “We are kindred spirits, you and I. We are survivors together. Survivors of this long battle, this cursed age. I have felt your spirit within me so many times across the centuries, Aliciana.”

  She moved her head in defiance. “Aliciana is dead.”

  “But she need not be. She can live again and rule the North once more. If you wish it, as I do.”

  His fingers caressed her shoulder and she trembled.

  “We are the last. This world belongs to us. It is our right. I shall be a living god, and none shall stand against me. And you, Cassia, you shall be my queen.”

  She wanted to heave up the contents of her stomach, but her muscles would no longer obey her thoughts. It was all she could do to keep her grip on the dying torch. The god of the North, in the body of her father – Oh please, no. Please. I should never have come here.

  The force of her revulsion gave her enough strength to lift her head from the ground. Cassia spat dirt from her lips, and lifted one stone-heavy hand to wipe at the tears that blurred her vision.

  “No,” she said.

  She cast outwards with her thoughts in desperation, seeking the nebulous thread that linked her back to Karakhel. It was almost gone. The fortress was engulfed by the mists. Stone shadows battled emotionlessly, heedless of their impending doom.

  Norrow’s hand tightened on her arm; Cassia pulled away, expended more of her failing strength to push herself across the dirt and stones. One foot flailed into empty air – she gasped and dug her fingers into the cracks between the blocks of stone, hanging on with one hand only. She could not say how, but she managed to thrust her other foot into a narrow gap, giving her enough leverage to make it back onto solid ground.

  Her father was waiting. She needed to get beyond his reach.

  “You are the Heir to the North,” the god said. “This land belongs to you.”

  “But the price is far too high.” She found her balance at last, set her legs beneath her, poised to spring. One last effort. One last chance.

  Power throbbed, unexpected, drum-like in its rhythm as it seeped into her. Slowly at first, then with the rising pressure of a flooded mountain river destroying the banks and fields around it as it poured downhill. Cassia inhaled sharply, and the air burned the roof of her mouth.

  Her father paused mid-step, his eyes wide and hungry. “Yes! Power – take it! Revel in it!”

  Cassia stumbled back, away from his grasp. Her limbs felt clumsy, the muscles charged as though she had sprinted a mile or more. She fumbled for the blade at her waist and it dropped to the ground, skidding from her reach.

  “I knew it,” the god said in triumph. “I knew you would follow in my steps. Pull the life to you. With it you shall be as immortal as I!”

  The torch’s flame was suddenly sharp and hot, with a bright blue core. More fuel, Cassia thought – but where could Attis have found it? Oh gods, what had he done?

  Her father took another step toward her. Acutely aware that as it burned so bright it consumed the source at Karakhel all the more quickly, Cassia seized the power offered to her and twisted away from him. She whipped the torch across his palm and Norrow recoiled with a scream.

  “No more!” she shouted. “No more! I don’t want to be immortal! I don’t want to rule this world, or any world!”

  Norrow’s features contorted into a snarl. Now she could see the anger and cruelty he had inherited from Jedrell. Those emotions were within her too, she knew. They would be so easy to tap into, to turn upon all those who had wronged her in some way, real or imagined . . .

  “The North will rise again,” Cassia told him, “but not on your terms.”

  “Ungrateful bitch,” the god hissed. He raised his unscalded hand, a nimbus of mist and lightning solidifying about his palm. “I shall strip your bones away as Baum did to that damned woman when she tried to stop him—”

  She thrust the torch into his face and burned him with her grandfather’s fury.

  Norrow’s thrashing limbs knocked her aside. Meredith’s forms brought her effortlessly to her feet once more, and this time the prince’s greatsword was in her hands, the blade still stained with Rais’s blood.

  The god had extinguished the flames already, but the damage was done – one eye was sightless, and his hair smouldered. The stink of burned flesh made Cassia gag. She pulled on the last fragile remnants of Karakhel’s power to shrug aside the torrent of rage that Pyraete poured forth at her. Stone melted, and the torch burned away to nothing.

  “No more,” Cassia repeated softly.

  And she whipped up beneath his reach and buried Meredith’s sword up to its hilt in her father’s guts.

  Norrow stared at her in disbelief. He exhaled once, a wet desperate cough, leaned to his right, and then toppled over the edge of the mount, still clutching at the hilt.

  Cassia watched the empty air for a long moment: tendrils of mist quested about uncertainly, and she had the sensation that every god ever named now looked down upon her.

  Fear me.

  The voice was an echo. A memory. Nothing more. And both the drums within her head and the sorcerous link to Karekhel were fading from her consciousness. Her grandfather . . . oh gods. At the very last he had done the only thing he could to keep the fire burning.

  . . . fear me . . .

  “Never again,” she muttered.

  Cassia had thought she should feel triumphant, like Pelicos, or one of the other
heroes of the old tales. Instead, there was anger. Pity. An odd sensation of being outside her own body. It made her nauseous. There was an unbearable weight of expectation on her shoulders. She let it push her back down to the ground.

  There were words. Words that had to be spoken.

  “I am the Heir to the North,” she said aloud. No, that was not quite right.

  “The North is mine.”

  And that was not right either. There ought to be something more. The words sounded empty, yet she sensed the land itself was waiting to hear what came next.

  What did come next?

  Even Pelicos, she thought, would have been lost for words.

  “The North is risen. Disperse and sleep. Sleep in peace.”

  The nearest tendrils of mist paused before her face and then began to withdraw.

  A few moments later she sensed that the sky was lightening. There was one particular patch of the sky above her that seemed illuminated from within the clouds. Or from behind them.

  Cassia lay upon the broken stones of Caenthell and waited for the sun to appear.

  This is not a restful place, she thought.

  But when the sun finally broke through the thinning layers of cloud to warm the churned ground and her muddied, bloodied fox-fur cloak, Cassia was already asleep.

  Epilogue

  The mede was enough to drive any man insane – a riot of sensation, mostly uninvited, that assaulted his eyes and his ears. Every step brought new spices, or the tang of offal or faeces, or sweat mingled with perfume, flavoured with fresh-baked bread. Jostled at every turn, he breathed as shallowly as he dared, feeling his tongue coated with the dust and oils of the city.

  Hetch yearned for the simplicity of Hellea, and that thought almost made him laugh aloud. It was not so long ago, after all, that Hellea itself had seemed to overwhelm him. The monstrous temples and precincts, the bustling streets around the dockside district, the opulence and dangerous weight of the Emperor’s Court . . . it was everything he had dreamed of and more besides. But for all the glamour of the city, he understood the people who lived there. He had learned at his father’s desk, after all, and Rann Almoul had dealt with soldiers, traders and Factors to make himself what he had been.

  The Hellean Emperor, Hetch realised quickly, was just another Factor, with an even fancier title. It was easy to deal with such people.

  Not so the heathen Galliarcans. The wiles and tricks his father had taught him got him nowhere in the mede. Hetch found himself pushed from stall to stall almost randomly, barely able to catch his breath before having to extricate himself from yet another incomprehensible attempt to sell him something he neither wanted nor needed. At least twice he had come close to losing his purse to some rat-like child thief before a stallholder could even begin his frantic sales pitch.

  And when he did get a word in edgeways to ask his questions in halting, mangled Galliarcan, the natives shook their heads, misunderstood, and pointed off in different directions. They were all laughing at him, he was sure of it.

  It was the third day of his search, and he was coming to the limit of his patience. He was not the only one. Factor Odis, the nominal head of the delegation, had expressed his dissatisfaction last night in a few pithy sentences, going so far as to allege that Hetch’s mind was not on the task at hand.

  Of course Hetch had denied that, but he knew if he did not succeed today then he would have to abandon the search altogether.

  The prince had said as much at dinner on the first night. While the other members of the delegation feasted and applauded the dancers that filled the palace’s impressive royal gardens, weaving through coloured smokes with veils as sharp as knives, Rais had touched Hetch’s shoulder and drawn him aside. They walked along the torch-lit paths until the music was muted behind them, and Hetch could not help but be reminded of the sheer scale of these gardens, and of the palace that enclosed them.

  The life of the Imperial Court suits you well, the prince said.

  Hetch had been all too aware already of the way his shirt stretched over his stomach. He hid his frown and merely inclined his head to acknowledge the comment.

  Your hospitality is faultless.

  The prince smiled. Hetch could not see much genuine humour in his expression. You do not have to be so diplomatic. After all we went through together, I think we can be honest with each other without taking offence, don’t you?

  Hetch paused. After a few more steps the prince halted too and looked back, waiting for him.

  What happened up there . . . on the hill . . .

  The prince shrugged as though it was of no consequence, but the tone of his voice suggested otherwise. We both lived.

  Hetch could not avoid looking at the prince’s right hand. The fingers had been painstakingly carved into a life-like pose, the wood painted beautifully to match his skin. But Rais still carried it with a degree of awkwardness and it was not difficult to see that the entire hand was false.

  I have one in bronze, the prince commented. And another in silver plate. One that is a fist carved with prayers. I count myself fortunate.

  He turned back to the path and walked on. After a moment Hetch followed him, wondering how to broach the subject he most wanted to mention to the prince.

  Cassia disappeared, he said at last. After the legions came, she just . . . disappeared.

  Yes, Rais said. I heard that. But you have coped. The North is risen, one might say.

  I heard that she came here. With you.

  Rais glanced back over his shoulder. And you think she is here, in the palace?

  Hetch had considered this often during his long journey from Hellea. No, he said. But I think you know where she is.

  Ah.

  Will you tell me?

  Rais shook his head.

  We fought together, Hetch persisted.

  And you ran away, the prince said.

  Yes, Hetch said. And I would do so again. Name me a coward if you will.

  To his surprise the prince smiled, and this time there was an element of warmth in his expression. Perhaps you are a better man now than you give yourself credit for. But still I cannot tell you where Cassia is.

  Cannot or will not?

  Which would you prefer to believe? Rais shrugged. If it makes you feel any better, then know that it is not my decision to make. If Cassia wishes to see you, then she will see you. But if you look for her, you will not find her.

  The prince had spoken the truth, it seemed. No matter how hard Hetch tried, no matter how many coins he distributed to urchins and beggars on the city’s streets, no matter what questions he put to the Hellean traders who made their living in Galliarca’s markets and docks, he could not find her. In the evenings he had taken to wandering through the mede, exploring the narrow alleyways and knocking on thick wooden doors half-buried in the shadowed walls. All he got for his efforts was an appreciation of the colourful nature of Galliarcan curses. And now, with Factor Odis’s mission accomplished, he had run out of time.

  He halted at a dingy hole in the wall that vented hot air from a below-ground bakery, and purchased a hot round of bread with one of the few coins he still possessed. While Odis and the others were tucking into the realm’s finest foods again, he was here in the depths of the mede with a peasant’s dinner. He felt a sudden stab of resentment towards the Factor. It wasn’t as if his land had been torn to pieces by sorcery, was it?

  Someone tugged on his sleeve and he jerked away angrily, raising a hand to slap the urchin before the damned child could lift his purse. But this was no urchin, he saw immediately, but a woman. Short and broad, she stared up at him with the expression that a grandmother would turn upon a recalcitrant child.

  Hetch bowed. “I’m in the way? I apologise.”

  The woman shook her head and grabbed his elbow again, this time managing to pull him off balance. Hetch spat out his mouthful of bread to curse her, but she paid him no attention, hauling him after her as though he had no choice in the matter. />
  He tore himself angrily from her grip. “What in all the hells is wrong with you?”

  The woman spat onto the ground. “Damned fool Almoul,” she said and stormed away from him.

  Hetch stared after her for a moment, and then abandoned his makeshift dinner to chase her through the streets.

  It did not take long for him to become absolutely lost in the maze of the mede. Once or twice he thought he recognised a particular street, or the patterning that decorated a recessed doorway, but those were fleeting moments and he knew that even if he tried to remember the route he would never find his way again. Instead he concentrated on keeping the woman in sight. It was difficult: small and deceptively fast, she was hidden easily in the crowds and several times he thought he had lost her completely, anger warring with fear in his chest, before she emerged as though from nowhere to tug at his sleeve again.

  And always she refused to respond to his questions. Where? Why? How far? She brushed them all aside by virtue of being almost out of earshot. Eventually Hetch followed her in silence.

  This time, he noted suddenly, the massed denizens of Galliarca had decided to leave him alone. Nobody impeded his progress through the mede. Unconsciously he laid one hand on the hilt of the small knife he had tucked underneath his shirt. No matter what Rais and his father might have said about the safety of their city and the welcome afforded their guests, he’d had no intention of venturing into the mede without a blade.

  No, he thought, forcing himself into rational deliberation. If anybody wanted to harm him, there were much easier methods than this. This was a summons.

  The woman stood facing him in the alleyway when he turned the next corner. Her arms were folded and her head cocked to one side as though he was late.

  Hetch glanced about, aware that the alleyway appeared deserted. The high walls to either side gave no clue as to the buildings behind them, while the door recessed into the wall at the far end stood open and a dirty child sat on the step, pushing small fistfuls of a rice dish into its mouth. Hetch could hear the mede, muted and filtering down through the air that carried over the rooftops.