The Twisted Citadel

by Sara Douglass

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE TWISTED CITADEL. Copyright ©2008 by Sara Douglass Enterprises. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen.

  No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means,whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Credits Jacket design by Ervin Serrano

  Jacket illustration by Steve Stone/Bernstein & Andriulli, Inc.

  Map design ɠSara Douglass Enterprises Pty Ltd 2006

  Microsoft Reader April 2008

  ISBN 978-0-06-165209-7

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PROLOGUE

  Ancient Coroleas

  T he blade of the knife slid under the skin of his thigh, passing between skin and flesh sweetly and with exquisite gentleness, the heat of the blade cauterizing myriad tiny blood vessels. Every now and then the God Priest who wielded the knife paused, twisting his hand so that the skin lifted away a little from the underlying tissues.

  Josia kept his eyes closed. The pain was bearable, just, but only if he did not allow himself to contemplate what the God Priest might do once he had completed making the long rents in Josia's thighs.

  Or only if he did not allow himself to hear the gasps of anticipation among the crowd of hundreds within the packed chamber, or the smacking of their lips.

  Josia lay as still as he might, his eyes tightly closed, ignoring the sounds about him, trying to keep his mind calm, and yet still he could not stop the tears sliding down his cheeks.

  It had not been his choice to die in this manner.

  The God Priest paused, contemplating the trembling and blood-streaked young man strapped naked to the top of the altar. The priest's mouth pursed in contemplation, then, decision made, he handed the knife back to his assistant, nodding at the query in the man's eyes.

  Then he looked back to Josia.

  The man was an extraordinary gift. Never before had anyone of such ability, of such family, been gifted to the God Priests. His soul would make a remarkable deity, and would sell for such a sum...

  The God Priest licked his lips, anticipating the gold that would be his by day's end.

  But first the young man had to die, and as badly as the God Priest could devise.

  His assistant returned to the God Priest's side, and very carefully handed to his master the little pot of molten lead.

  The God Priest bent down to Josia, the glow of the molten metal reflecting the avarice in the priest's eyes.

  The assistant leaned forward, knife in hand, and lifted up the flap of skin on the nearest cut.

  Josia smelled the metal, felt its warmth, felt the skin lift away from one of the cuts, and screamed.

  He could not stop himself. He screamed and screamed, the breath wrenching in and out of his lungs, his body convulsing so badly he would have slid from the altar had not he been held tight with straps.

  The God Priest poured the molten metal into the cut, taking great care now that the offering twitched so horribly, and wrinkled his nose in disgust at the smell that rose from Josia's burning flesh.

  Then he moved to the next cut, pausing only so his assistant could refill the little pot of molten lead.

  Josia escaped to the Twisted Tower. He ran down the path toward the corkscrew fortress, automatically counting out the eighty-six steps, and thudded against the wooden door, his hand closing about the doorknob.

  He did not open it. He could, he knew he could, for the Twisted Tower would not prevent him entry, but if he entered while the Corolean God Priest was torturing him, then he might corrupt the tower and all its contents.

  He huddled against the door, sobbing, wretched beyond imagining.

  If he entered, then he would be safe, but he would corrupt the tower.

  If he stayed outside then eventually the God Priest would have him, and his soul would be tortured into one of the Coroleans' cursed bronze deities.

  Josia knew what he had to do.

  He leaned his forehead against the door, trying to bring his weeping under control.

  Inside the tower, his father and brother looked at each other, then both turned their backs on the door,

  closing their ears and hearts to the sound of Josia's horror.

  The God Priest sighed.

  After eight hours of the most exquisite of tortures, the offering was now in a wretched state. Both his life and his sanity hung by a very thin thread.

  It would not be long.

  As tired as he was, the God Priest managed a smile and a nod to the assembled mass of the Corolean First. He had saved the very best for last.

  Once more he nodded to his assistant who brought forth a large gray rat, caged in a wickerwork basket.

  The God Priest lifted out the rat carefully--the very last thing he needed was a nip from the creature's sharp teeth--and held it down on Josia's belly while his assistant fetched a large copper bowl which had leather straps hanging from its rim. With both careful maneuvering and timing, the God Priest and his assistant trapped the rat under the upturned bowl, then strapped the bowl tightly to Josia's belly.

  The crowd breathed in, almost as one, and every single man and woman of them leaned forward, their eyes wide with anticipation.

  The God Priest looked about at the crowd, a slight smile on his tired face, reveling in the moment.

  He took one of the two ladles his assistant held, paused, and then both he and the assistant beat at the copper bowl with all their strength, dancing about the altar in a maddened frenzy.

  Josia couldn't let go. He couldn't die. All he wanted was to escape into death, even though he knew the God Priest would then trap his soul, but he couldn't let go.

  His body was a mass of wounds. He had been beaten, tortured, agonized, teased, tormented. Every moment he existed was now spent in an ocean of pain.

  Josia could not let himself take that final step into death.

  He wanted to weep, but there were no more tears left.

  He wanted the God Priest and his assistant to cease their infernal din on the bowl for it fractured his concentration, and if he wanted to die then he needed to concentrate or--

  Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods!

  The rat, driven into insanity by the noise and reverberation, desperate to escape, bit deeply into his belly.

  Josia found he had, indeed, enough voice and breath remaining to scream.

  The God Priest continued his beating on the bowl, but now it was slightly less frenzied.

  He had seen from Josia's face the instant the rat had begun to chew into his belly--had seen the incredulous horror fill the man's eyes the moment before he had shrieked.

  Then Josia convulsed.

  The God Priest lowered the ladle, stepping away from the altar and indicated to his assistant to do likewise.

  He was amazed that Josia still had the strength to move so violently.

  He would make the most powerful deity the Coroleans had ever seen.

  The God Priest watched intently, knowing that Josia's death was only heartbeats away...needing not to miss the moment.

  A movement under Josia's rib cage caught the priest's eye, and he held his breath.

  The rat was almost at Josia's heart...soon...soon...soon...
/>
  "Quick!" the God Priest hissed, and the assistant handed him a bronze statue, beautifully carved in exquisite detail into the perfect likeness of the man now lying dying on the altar.

  Soon...

  Josia's eyes remained wide open. He drew in a deep breath, readying for another shriek, when suddenly everything stopped.

  Everything about him stilled.

  The God Priest's own eyes widened; he held his breath, then he suddenly relaxed.

  "Got you," he said, smiling in relief, and cradled the bronze statue against his body.

  Josia existed. It was cold and heartless where he was now, but at least there was no pain.

  There was nothing, save his existence, and a sense of what lay in the world about him.

  A man, reaching for the receptacle which held Josia trapped.

  A title, to go with the man. The Duke of Sidon.

  Cold. Everything about Josia was cold.

  He wept.

  Within the chamber deep in the heart of the Palace of the First in Coroleas, all eyes were on the wondrous bronze deity that the God Priest now handed to the Duke of Sidon.

  No one looked at the corpse lying on the altar, and thus no one saw the rat, wet with blood and shaking with effort, crawl from the corpse's mouth, drop from the altar, and scramble away into a dark corner.

  No one saw it again, not for a very, very long time.

  Part One

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Sky Peaks Pass, and DarkGlass Mountain, Isembaard

  Ishbel Brunelle Persimius sank to her knees in the snow, watching Maximilian Persimius, the Lord of Elcho Falling, walk away from her into the night.

  I'm so sorry, he said to her, over his shoulder. So sorry.

  He vanished into the darkness, Ravenna at his side.

  Very slowly Ishbel leaned over, her hands clutching into the snow, until her forehead touched the ground's icy surface. She stayed like that for four or five heartbeats, then her right fist beat once against the snow, then again, and she swore, very softly but very fiercely.

  Ishbel straightened, sitting back on her heels, staring into the night.

  She was furious. She had been kneeling in the snow, forehead to ground, for only a short space of time, but in that time she had journeyed from the absolute despair of Maximilian's rejection to a depth of rage that she'd never experienced previously.

  Ishbel was not angry at Maximilian, nor even at Ravenna, but at herself. She could not believe that she, Archpriestess of the Coil, wife of the Lord of Elcho Falling, lover of the Tyrant of Isembaard, and a Persimius in her own right, had allowed herself to be outmaneuvered so easily. She could not believe that she, Ishbel, had allowed herself to be beaten into the snow, and so humiliated.

  Even Maximilian's former lover, StarWeb, had not managed so easily what Ravenna had just accomplished with a few powerful words.

  I carry his child, Ishbel. His heir. Maximilian Persimius will cleave to me now.

  While Ishbel's current anger was directed at herself rather than at Ravenna, Ravenna had managed to earn herself Ishbel's enduring enmity--not merely for what Ravenna had said and done, but for the satisfaction with which she had delivered her triumph.

  Ravenna's time would come.

  Ishbel rose and brushed snow from her skirt and face with irritated, staccato movements. "Am I such a naive girl to be rendered so easily the fool?" she muttered. "I cannot believe I allowed Ravenna such an easy victory!"

  Fool no longer, she thought, as she strode in the opposite direction from that which Maximilian and Ravenna had taken.

  Ravenna need expect no goodwill from me in the future, and no more easy victories.

  As she walked, her back straight, a hard glint in her eyes, Ishbel whispered into the night. "Madarin!

  Madarin! Madarin!"

  Madarin was the soldier Ishbel had healed of a twisted bowel on the way down from the FarReach Mountains to Aqhat when Axis was escorting her to be Isaiah's new wife. She had no reason to believe that Madarin was still with that half of the enormous army which Isaiah had now brought as far as the Sky Peaks Pass, but somehow she knew he was here.

  "Madarin," she whispered, every inch the priestess intent on her purpose. "Come, I have need of you."

  Ten minutes later, as Ishbel stood shrouded by a line of dozing horses at the edge of the huge camp, a man emerged out of the night.

  Kanubai stood in the Infinity Chamber in the center of DarkGlass Mountain and exulted. Far to the north the Lord of Elcho Falling vacillated, weak and indecisive, while here Kanubai stood fully fleshed and powerful, and with an army of gray wraiths at his command.

  Moreover, here Kanubai stood, fully fleshed from the flesh of the daughter of the Lord of Elcho Falling himself and that would ensure Kanubai's success.

  There was nothing the Lord of Elcho Falling could do against him.

  Kanubai smiled.

  There were a dozen or so Skraelings within the chamber, all crouched in various postures of servility and awe before their lord. They were loathsome creatures, but they would do.

  Kanubai stretched his arms out and roared, knowing that roar would reverberate in the ears of the Lord of Elcho Falling and terrify him.

  As he did so, one of his hands glanced against the blackened ruins of the once-beautiful golden glass of the Infinity Chamber.

  And as his hand glanced against the ruined glass, so DarkGlass Mountain took him. More to the point, it absorbed him.

  The pyramid had been waiting a very long time for just this moment.

  Ravenna glanced at Maximilian, walking by her side. His face was set into a rigid, featureless expression which Ravenna knew meant he hid deep emotion.

  She slid her arm through his, pulling their bodies together as they walked toward the tent they shared with Venetia, Ravenna's mother.

  "I know it hurts," she said, "but it was the right thing to do."

  Maximilian did not reply.

  "Ishbel isn't the right--"

  "Leave it be, Ravenna, I beg you."

  Ravenna fell silent, torn between wanting to make certain that Maximilian understood the tragedy that Ishbel could make of his life, and knowing that pushing the issue could just as easily alienate him from herself.

  His steps slowed, and Ravenna felt his body tense.

  She panicked. "Maxel, it is done now. You can't go back."

  Maximilian finally stopped, forcing Ravenna to halt as well. "I shouldn't have turned my back on her like that. Ever since her childhood, Ishbel has dreamed that eventually the Lord of Elcho Falling would destroy her life, and now--"

  "Maxel, she is the one who will destroy your life."

  Maximilian sighed, the reaction Ravenna dreaded the most. "I was too harsh, Ravenna. Too cruel. Ishbel didn't deserve what I just said to her."

  Ravenna grabbed at one of his hands, bringing it to her breast. "She is weak, Maxel. Through that weakness she will destroy you. Ishbel will midwife nothing but sorrow into this land."

  Maximilian regarded her, then leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "I know you mean only goodness, Ravenna, but I need to speak with Ishbel. I should not have walked away from her in that manner and I

  need to make sure she is all right."

  "She will seduce you!"

  He laughed, genuinely amused. "Not even Ishbel would think of that in this great chill! I treated her most badly, Ravenna. Let me go, I pray you, so that I may speak a little more gently to her. I will not linger, and I promise to you that I shall not allow myself to be seduced."

  He started to pull back from Ravenna, but she clasped both her hands about his, tightening her grip.

  "There is something I should show you, Maxel."

  "Not now, Ravenna."

  "No. Now! Maxel, I know you think my aversion to Ishbel either a product of womanly jealousy or of blind bigotry--but it comes from a knowledge I have yet to share with you."

  "Ravenna--"

  "Let me share it now, Maxel."

  He was sti
ll leaning away from her, but not so strongly now.

  "Let me show you, Maxel," she whispered, and the snow about them vanished.

  Maximilian pulled his hand from Ravenna's, but it was too late. The snowy ground about the army encampment disappeared and he found himself standing with Ravenna on a gravel path that wound through a misty marshland. Water festered in dank, black muddy pools to either side of the path, and thick mist drifted through stands of gray-green trees almost denuded of leaves, its tendrils becoming momentarily hooked on the trees' skeletal branches before twisting free and floating onwards.

  It was very warm and Maximilian loosened his cloak.

  "This is the Land of Dreams," Ravenna said. "My land."

  "Why are we here?" Maximilian said. He was annoyed with Ravenna, but more so with himself. He wished, quite desperately, that he had not behaved so ungraciously toward Ishbel.

  And he needed to find some solitude, so that he might wonder if he'd made the right decision...or not.

  "I want to show you something," Ravenna said.

  "Ravenna, I need to get back."

  "No," she said, "you need to see this."

  She waved a hand to her right, and the mists cleared.

  Maximilian saw a roadway, winding its serpentine way toward a distant mountain, gleaming with gold at its top, set among the clouds.

  Elcho Falling.

  Bodies of men and horses littered the roadway. Icarii lay among the dead, and Emerald Guardsmen, and Maximilian could see Georgdi lying atop a heap of Outlanders to one side.

  Look, whispered Ravenna.

  An army now moved along the road toward Elcho Falling, pushing aside the bodies of the fallen as it went. The army consisted of creatures distorted into gruesome form, their eyes wide and starting--lost and hopeless. At their head strode a man of darkness.

  This is what Ishbel shall generate, Ravenna said.

  No, Maximilian said.

  The army marched its way to the doors of Elcho Falling, and Maximilian and Ravenna saw, as if they stood only feet away, the man of darkness reach forth and pound his fist on the gates.