by Rj Barker
“It’s flooded,” said the second Landsman.
“Why you guarding a flood? Frightened Blue Watta might come up out of it?”
“Blessed,” said the first Landsman, “this is the entrance to the Sepulchre of the Gods. It must be guarded whether people can get in or not.”
“Really? The sepulchre? I’ve always wanted to see that.” He tried to walk forward and the Landsmen moved to block his way. As they did, both Tinia and I slipped out of hiding, through the shadows and over the treacherous, slimy ground.
We stopped before the pool. It would be hard to get in without making noise but Aydor was watching us, a big grin on his face.
“What’s this stuff on the floor?” He placed a foot outside the path and pretended to slip on the slimy surface, grabbing one of the Landsmen by his armour and bringing the man crashing down on top of him. The second Landsman was alarmed, but only for a second, then he started laughing at Aydor, who was cursing and demanding the Landsman on top of him be removed. How it was done I did not see, as I had already taken three deep breaths and plunged into the filthy water guarding the graveyard of our gods.
When I entered the water I had a moment of panic, it was always the same. The water was the same opaque green as the pond I had nearly drowned in as a child, Blue Watta’s thick weeds twining round my legs, unwilling to let me go. I nearly spat out all the air I was holding when a monstrous face loomed out of the dank water at me, but it was only a statue of Torelc, the god of time, his eyes chipped away. I felt a tug on my foot and my heart skipped a beat. Turning in the water I found Tinia, serpents of long black hair floating around her, her cheeks distended with air. She pointed at the floor and dived, I followed the white flash of her skirts. I could feel the make-up on my face disintegrating in the water and started to worry that a slick of coloured oils on the surface may give me away.
No time for worry.
Had to find the tunnel Neander spoke of and hope he had not lied about gates. In the dark and murk it was easy to get confused—up was down; down was up—and it was only when I banged my head that I realised I had been swimming upside down. I twisted. Tinia was above me. She pointed in the opposite direction and we swam. A great maw loomed, dark and toothed. No, not a mouth. A tunnel, carved like a huge down-turned mouth. Above it I saw part of a nose but it vanished into the dim water. As we swam into the tunnel darkness swallowed us, all light from the pool we had entered quickly vanished and in the darkness the burning of my lungs as they begged for more air became fiercer. Panicky thoughts in my mind.
Breathe.
Can’t. Breathe.
What if Neander was wrong about the length of the tunnel?
Can’t. Breathe.
What if he lied?
Can’t breathe.
It seems so long. Lasts for ever. Blue Watta calls me.
Can’t breathe.
More than three minutes.
Can’t breathe.
Neander, curse you. You lied. Fighting the temptation to turn and swim back.
Air. Need air.
Light!
I see light. Dim at first, nothing more than a faint glow but growing.
Air.
Please.
Air.
Beating against the water. Pushing myself forward and the light is both growing and shrinking. My arms fight the water as it thickens around me. I am leaden, heavy, sinking. A hand grabs me, pulls me upwards. I break the water.
Thank Xus.
Air.
Breathe.
Tinia’s hand goes over my mouth stopping me coughing. She puts a finger to her lips, making sure I know to be quiet, and I nod. We scull to the darkest edge of the pool. My sense of the world around me is stunted by the souring far below. I have only what I can see, smell, hear and touch.
Water and Tinia.
She is holding me close and it is strange how touching her, even with our skin slick with foetid water, there is that instant frisson that comes from touching another magic user. She is not strong in it, not like I am, but it is there. She gives me a small smile and her hands flick out.
“If we get out alive?” And I nod. Most of the room is raised, stairs lead up to it so it is hidden from us and before us water laps at the bottom of the steps. To the left and the right a broad path arcs away, serving neatly to hide us from anyone who may be above.
In the light of a single guttering torch we pull ourselves from sucking water like heavy lizards, our sharp teeth strapped to our legs, our thick scales of enamelled plate and steel. On our bellies, we make for the darkest edges of the room. There is something here, something pepper- and honey-scented and impossible. My hands flicker words.
“Can you smell it?” She nods.
“Magic.”
We circle the room. Across the walls images of the gods fight each other, huge and muscled, naked as children—gods have no need for modesty. Beneath them men and women fight, tiny mounts gallop between the legs of the gods. As we move my hands trace out the shapes on the walls, death in all its many forms. From there we head down a short tunnel. Short steps, carefully placed feet, no noise made between us, and the only comfort I have in the cold tomb is Tinia—and she me. It is unspoken and as natural as breathing. We are a pair. We have become our own sorrowing. Madly, I am taken by the sudden desire to tell her about Feorwic, about my oath to avenge her.
“In here.” Tinia pulls me into a small room that is almost entirely filled by a huge machine of brass and leather. I do not understand it. I have seen nothing like it before but it does not look broken. Oil glistens on it. In the oil I can see the arcs of where levers have been pulled, and recently. I check for dirt or hair stuck in the oil but there is no sign of it. If the machine had stood idle for any amount of time there should be. In fact, the whole machine sparkles and there is nothing about it that makes me think it is damaged or inoperative in any way.
We move back to the pool, and I cannot resist glancing up towards the raised sepulchre.
Light.
It flickers above us.
Pulse.
It staggers me. It is a hundred times more powerful than anything I have felt before.
Pulse.
If I was not already squatting I would have fallen. And with the pulse comes a cry, not a scream: a strangled gurgle that holds the sure knowledge of death. I wait a moment. Wait for the pulsing I feel to die down a little, for my heart to stop beating and for my mind to clear.
Pulse.
I am drawn forward by something strong, something strange.
Flickering hands: “What is it, Girton?”
“I do not know.”
Forward, up the steps: whoever is here does not expect to be interrupted. I hear voices, familiar, extolling Xus, calling out to him for blessings and gifts and power. All the things I know he does not bring. All the things I have never felt from him. My god offers only one gift and it is peaceful, silent and eternal.
Pulse.
I find myself in a fugue, barely seeing the world around me. I am drawn forward by magic, but not magic as I know it. This is not living magic. This is magic somehow held, suspended between life and death. I cannot understand it or touch it and I cannot drag myself away from it.
Pulse.
Tinia’s hand stills me, pulls me down into the shadows, and that brief human contact breaks the spell. I watch as a horror unfolds before me.
Adallada and Dallad dominate the room: statues ten—twenty?—times the height of a tall man. Statues of such beauty I want to weep. If not for their size it would be easy to mistake them for human They are carved exquisitely, painted beautifully, and the pain on Adallada’s face is plain as she raises the blade to finish her beloved consort in the penultimate act of the war of the gods. Above them is something not beautiful, something alien to this place, something that is not meant to be.
Someone has tried to sculpt Xus on the same scale: a black robe, constructed of hundreds of badly painted canvasses, a hood that hides the face
, hands made of tree branches in poor imitation of fingers. From the broken wooden fingers hang chains, and the chains hold a cage: the same sort used on a blood gibbet but this cage is only made to hold a body, not torture it. The naked head and shoulders of the woman in it are exposed. She does not scream or cry, or even seem worried by the pile of bloodied bodies below her, and I wonder what drug she has been given. To one side of the cage stands Vondire, a knife in his hand, and to the other stands Fureth. Behind them, at the feet of the statue, are about a hundred people, a mix of Landsmen and the Children of Arnst. They look ecstatic. Two Landsmen stand with Fureth and between them they hold the body of the man who had been Barin’s Heartblade.
On a throne, between the feet of Adallada, sits a figure.
I cannot see its face. Its head is bowed and long, greasy red hair falls in tangles almost to the floor. It wears only a shapeless, dirty shift over a starved and emaciated body, and appears to be shackled into the throne. The red hair can mean only one thing.
“Darsese,” I say quietly to myself. The grimy throne seems a mockery of the position he once held. Tinia nods and then Vondire shouts, “For the living god!” A Landsman steps forward and takes Darsese’s thin left hand and places it on the head of the imprisoned woman. Immediately, she starts to convulse and the Landsman quickly cuts her throat. A spray of blood shoots out to cover the figure of Darsese.
I hear-feel-see a sigh of satisfaction and once more the tomb of the gods throbs.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Pulse.
It is like being inside a bell as it is rung and only Tinia’s hand on my arm stops me stumbling forward in answer to the call. It hungers. Once the body is bled out Vondire opens the cage and lets it fall out, joining the pile already there. Then Fureth steps forward. His two men bring up Barin’s Heartblade and Vondire takes the right hand of Darsese. He holds it by a piece of material wrapped around the wrist.
“In the eyes of Xus. In the name of the living god, I ask you to heal this loyal servant,” says Fureth quietly and surely, and among those behind him there is an almost palpable sense of expectation. Vondire places the hand of Darsese on the head of the body held by his men.
Pulse.
Pulse.
And I feel it.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Feel him healed.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Feel the pent-up magic leave the body of Darsese and flow into him—but it is wrong. So wrong. It tastes like vomit. Smells like rot. Makes me want to kill everyone in the room.
Barin’s Heartblade, who I left barely breathing at the bottom of the stair, left him no more than a step from Xus’s dark palace, stands as if he has never known the kiss of the blade. He goes to join a phalanx of others, all similarly armoured.
“This is not our Xus,” Tinia’s hands flicker out.
“No, this is not.”
Clear as day I hear the Heartblade speak.
“The assassin, Death’s Jester.” His voice is as dead as any priest’s. “He killed me. He was dressed as a slave and on his way to meet Barin.”
Vondire seems far more horrified by this news than by its source—a man once dead, now living. “They know!” says Vondire. “Barin betrayed us. I said he could not be trusted and I told you we could not keep our secret for ever. We should have moved on the pretender king the first chance we had.”
“We must act,” said Fureth, face hard and determined. “Lock Gamelon away somewhere until this is over. He loves to meddle and cannot be trusted. Tonight we will begin moving men to the battlements. In the morning we will move against Rufra and all who support him.” Vondire nodded.
“I will have my people ready in from the town. Make sure the portcullis is open.”
“That should not be hard,” said Fureth.
“And Girton, the crippled jester,” said Vondire. “We want him.”
“You cannot have him,” said the Landsman. “I promised him to the other assassin. That was her price and we may need her skills.”
Then I heard no more. Tinia Speaks-Not was dragging me away, back to the dark cold pool and the castle. We had to warn Rufra.
If the Landsmen planned to act in the morning, then we must act tonight.
Chapter 28
Rufra was planning war when Neander appeared.
The king had pulled together two tables and dressed them with bricks and broken plaster to set up a map of Ceadoc, both the castle and the town. Around it stood the leaders of his troops, the blessed who supported him, Venia, one of Festival’s captains, and Marrel ap Marrel and his sons.
“We don’t have enough troops,” said Dinay. “We should leave before the Landsmen are in a position to move. With the Children of Arnst outside, and Landsmen and highguard on the walls, we will be cut to ribbons. Even we if we pool all our troops and the other blessed stand aside then—”
“The highguard will not be a problem,” said Neander as he swept in and took his place by the table.
“You have already beaten them single-handedly?” said Aydor. Neander glared at him and turned to Rufra.
“It turns out Torvir ap Genyyth is not happy about having his men executed for entertainment by Gamelon. Should there be fighting, the highguard will retreat to the throne room and keep it safe for whoever wins.”
“They will not join us then,” said Rufra.
“Torvir is annoyed with Gamelon, but not annoyed enough to risk his own life or position. He was tempted to join the Landsmen as he does not see how they could lose. But I have impressed on him how you are yet to be beaten in war. So he will bide his time for now. He is less an ally, more of an interested observer.”
“Well.” Rufra let out a sigh. “It is more than I had hoped for, if I am honest.”
“There is another thing,” said Neander, “and this is not a thing you will like.”
“Coming from you, that is a shock,” I said, but Neander carried on as if I had not spoken.
“We must keep Gamelon alive. He will not be involved in the fighting anyway, as you know, but if he is found he must be kept alive.”
“I have ordered him kept alive. I fully intend to bring him to justice,” said Rufra. I almost laughed at his misunderstanding.
“I don’t think Neander means you should keep him alive to hang later,” I said.
Rufra’s thick eyebrows furrowed.
“He is a monster, no better than the maned lizards that hunt and kill even when they do not hunger.”
“Oh, I do not disagree,” said Neander.
“What he means,” I said, stooping so I could line up my fingers with one of the figures he had set up to symbolise the leaders set against us, “is that Gamelon is too important to kill.” I flicked the figure across the table.
Rufra drew himself up to his full height, which was not particularly tall, and grimaced at the pain in his side.
“No man,” he said, and I saw a flicker of the friend I had held close in my youth, “is more important than justice. The things Gamelon has done: the menageries? The burnings, the blood gibbets, the fights? All these things—”
Neander started speaking. As high priest he had the prerogative to speak over anyone except the high king, though I had never heard of it being used, but Neander had never been a patient man.
“These are all terrible things,” he said, though he did not sound as though he thought them that terrible, “but the fact remains that Ceadoc Castle cannot run without Gamelon. No one else knows its secrets, and there are many, and no one else can control the scribes who control the archives. Without them …”
“The castle will fall into disrepair?” I said. “And the people outside it will be allowed to rule themselves without the wishes of a dim and distant high king interfering in their lives?” Both Neander and Rufra ignored me. Rufra seemed lost, staring out of one of the holes that served as windows in the Low Tower.
“Gamelon will be taken alive,” he said, looking round th
e table. His eyes settled on me. “Do you understand?” Everyone nodded but it was me particularly that Rufra watched, and my agreement he wanted. His blue eyes searched my face and I knew he wanted more than agreement from me. He wanted understanding, understanding of why he would spare this man if it meant he could hold Ceadoc and bring his ways to the whole of the Tired Lands, clear the palace of the rest of its filth. And I did understand. I did. But I could not get past the joy I had seen in Gamelon when he had shown me the menageries, and it was hard to believe anything built with that man as part of its foundation could ever be good. “Girton?” said Rufra quietly.
I nodded.
“If I come across him I will hand him over to you, my king.” I turned from him and stared at the table.
“Destroying the menageries will be my first act as high king, Girton,” said Rufra. I nodded and he paused, for a second only, as if he expected more, and then carried on speaking. “I will remain here. If I leave then Fureth will know something is happening. Marrel will lead the attack on the sepulchre with Aydor, Girton and thirty warriors.”
“Thirty?” said Aydor. “The Landsmen will cut us to pieces.”
“No,” said Rufra, “not if they do not know you are coming. If you can get into the sepulchre and secure Darsese, then when the other Landsmen see him, support for Fureth will melt away.”
“You hope,” I said.
“No, I am sure. Most Landsmen believe in what they do. If they learn Fureth has been using magic, imprisoning the high king, they will turn on him.”
“So we must not only get in, we must get out as well?” said Aydor.
“And with a man who is barely conscious,” I added.
“I did not say it would be easy,” said Rufra. “That is why I am sending my best. The Landsmen will be concentrated here. We will keep them busy.”
“Festival will ride for Rufra,” said Venia.
“Unusual to see you lot doing anything but sitting and watching,” said Aydor.
“The Landsmen have long disliked Festival,” said Venia, “This is a fight we cannot afford them to win, and if we lose we only hasten a demise that is coming anyway.”
