Twilight of Kerberos: Wrath of Kerberos

by Jonathan Oliver

  TWILIGHT OF KERBEROS

  The WRATH

  of KERBEROS

  By Jonathan Oliver

  TWILIGHT of KERBEROS

  GABRIELLA DEZANTEZ

  The Light of Heaven

  LUCIUS KANE

  Shadowmage

  Night's Haunting

  Legacy's Price (Coming in 2012)

  KALI HOOPER

  The Clockwork King of Orl

  The Crucible of the Dragon King

  Engines of the Apoclaypse

  The Trials of Trass Kathra

  SILUS MORLADER

  The Call of Kerberos

  The Wrath of Kerberos

  TWILIGHT OF KERBEROS

  The Children of the Pantheon (Coming in 2012)

  For Maia Rose Oliver,

  who arrived halfway through

  and changed everything

  An Abaddon BooksTM Publication

  www.abaddonbooks.com

  abaddon@rebellion.co.uk

  First published in 2012 by Abaddon BooksTM, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

  Editor-in Chief: Jonathan Oliver

  Desk Editor: David Moore

  Cover Art: Mark Harrison

  Design: Simon Parr & Luke Preece

  Marketing and PR: Keith Richardson

  Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

  Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

  Copyright © 2012 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

  Twilight of KerberosTM, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

  ISBN (ePUB): 978-1-84997-335-9

  ISBN (MOBI): 978-1-84997-336-6

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  PART ONE

  A WORLD AWAY FROM HOME

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHEN THE FIRST boot crashed against the door, Stanwick Tassiter dropped the candle. The flame caught the folios he had been reading, and the scholar was caught between the horror of the unexpected intrusion and the sight of his precious scriptures burning. As he batted at the pages, a blade appeared through a rent in the wood panelling of the door. He looked up, dismayed to see the design on the weapon. He now knew exactly who had come for him, and he wasn’t at all surprised; the texts he had been poring over were high on the Final Faith’s list of prohibited works. Stanwick had thought himself well guarded. Was it possible that Tremayne and Finch had given him away? They had always been amongst the most weak-willed of his acolytes.

  Whatever. Stanwick had known the risks when he had taken up his studies, and so had made sure to create copies of his most important tomes. Those, the Faith would never find.

  The door finally gave way and four heavily-armoured members of the Order of the Swords of Dawn burst into the subterranean archive. One of them rushed across the room and pressed a sword to his throat, while another forced Stanwick’s arms so far up his back that he let out a high-pitched squeal.

  The commander – judging by the intricate designs on her breastplate – riffled through the charred pages on the desk and grunted with satisfaction.

  “These will make a fine addition to the archive of forbidden literature at Scholten cathedral. Thank you for your help in taking such dangerous works out of circulation, Stanwick.”

  Stanwick chose not to respond. He knew what awaited him now. He would spend a short amount of time in the depths of Scholten, at Katherine Makennon’s pleasure, before being sent to the gibbet. There would be no trial. Makennon probably wouldn’t even be aware of his passing.

  “You know,” he said. “It would save us all a lot of time if you just spilled my blood right here. You could say I resisted arrest. It would be so much easier, in the long run.”

  “I don’t think so,” the commander said. “Brother Sequilious was quite adamant that he wanted you all taken alive.”

  A hood was thrown over Stanwick’s head and he was hustled from the room. He fell twice on the steps up to the surface – once so badly that he sprained his ankle – and by the time he was bundled through a narrow door and onto a bench, his leg was singing with pain. He bit back tears, not wanting the Swords to witness his grief, but he couldn’t stop a sob escaping his lips.

  “Stanwick? Stanwick Tassiter?” a voice said, close by. A hand fumbled into his. “Yes, it’s Stanwick, all right. I’d recognise those soft academic’s hands anywhere.”

  It was Alex, the blind weaver who lived not far from Stanwick.

  “Alex, what are you doing here?”

  He knew full well that the weaver regularly paid his dues at the local church. He couldn’t begin to imagine how the old man had come to the attention of the Swords.

  “It sounds like the whole of Westbay is being rounded up.” Alex said.

  The room lurched and there was the sound of wheels rumbling over cobbles. Stanwick realised then that he was surrounded by people whimpering and praying. He recognised many of the voices amongst the multitude, all people he knew would never consider defying the Final Faith. Why had Makennon ordered this mass abduction?

  The carriage travelled for about ten minutes before coming to a halt. Stanwick could now hear the sound of waves pounding against rocks and, just below that, voices raised in song.

  The door of the carriage was opened and Stanwick was herded out, along with the rest of the villagers. Alex still held his hand, until it was batted away by the flat of a blade. Chains were looped around Stanwick’s wrists and ankles.

  With a shouted command and a sharp tug on the chains, a slow shuffle began up a steep and uneven path. An icy wind blasted against Stanwick’s left side and he sensed a sheer drop just a short distance from the path. Men and women of the Order of the Swords of Dawn ushered their captives on and Stanwick was appalled to hear the voice of Westbay’s own priest amongst them. Despite his misguided beliefs, he had never struck Stanwick as a particularly cruel or duplicitous man.

  “Henry,” he called out, “please tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’m sorry, Stanwick. Really I am.”

  The singing was louder now and Stanwick was taken aback when he realised that the words were elvish. Why were the Final Faith using a song of that ancient race? More importantly, what were they using it for?

  They seemed to be entering a vast echoing chamber now and he could taste magic in the air – burned cinnamon and wet stone. When his hood was savagely torn from his head and he finally saw the choir, Stanwick gasped.

  Twenty-five pale young boys sang with the voices of angels. From the pitch of their song, he supposed that they had been emasculated. Their flesh was heavily scarified and tattooed; the designs seemed to dance to the ethereal cadences, and Stanwick felt a deep nausea as the illustrations held his gaze.

  A knife prodding into his side soon snapped him out of his reverie.

  “Move along. You’re holding up the line.”

  Stanwick looked at the blood beading his trews. He left a trail of red dots as he followed the rest of the captives.

  The choir stood on a natural balcony cut into the chamber wall and a slope led past them, down into the main body of the cave. The
roof of the cavern was far above their heads and at the far side was a brilliant blue lake, its water slowly undulating to the distant sound of waves. Stanwick looked around him as the hoods were pulled from the prisoners. The frightened faces that greeted his tugged at his heart and the stench of fear – even in this vast space – was stifling. It wasn’t just the men and women of Westbay the Faith had taken; there were children here too, and a makeshift corral had even been constructed to house the village’s modest collection of livestock.

  Behind them all, the choir’s song rose in volume as the torches ringing the lake were lit.

  A man stood in front of the line of torches. He was tall and thin, even emaciated. His skin was smooth and pale, his head hairless, and as he disrobed, Stanwick saw that the rest of his body was the same. He passed his garments to a young man, who knelt briefly to receive a blessing before hurrying away with his bundle.

  The thin man knelt, and a priest – Henry – came forward and placed an unsteady hand on the thin man’s head. Stanwick saw by Henry’s gestures that he was performing the ceremony of absolution. He wondered what sin the stranger had committed, that he sought forgiveness. Maybe, he considered with a start, he was seeking forgiveness for a sin that he was about to commit.

  The ritual over, the priest withdrew and, at a gesture from the gaunt, naked man, the choir fell silent. The only sounds now were the whimpering of the prisoners and the lapping of the lake against the shore. A cadre of priests moved through the crowd, flicking pungent oil from silver sprinklers.

  Stanwick’s stomach clenched as he recognised the smell.

  It took him back to his mother’s deathbed – more than twenty years earlier – and the look of terror in her eyes as a priest had anointed her with the oil to ease her soul’s passage to Kerberos. Stanwick’s mother had never been a believer, but his father was, and it had been he who’d insisted she take the last rites. The ceremony had done little to relieve her terror, though, as her life slipped away and she had stared into oblivion.

  Stanwick knew something of his mother’s fear now and he pulled at the chains that bound him, but there was no give in the links.

  They were all going to die.

  BROTHER SEQUILIOUS STOOD staring at the chained villagers gathered before him as he prepared the spell.

  “What have we ever done to you?” someone in the crowd shouted. “What has the Faith got against Westbay?”

  The fact was that the Final Faith had nothing against Westbay, but this coastal settlement was small enough that the disappearance of its populace could easily be covered up. Bandits would be blamed, or maybe the Chadassa.

  Brother Sequilious closed his eyes. Behind him, a last small wave lapped at the lake’s shore before the water became unnaturally still. Sweat began to bead his forehead as he envisioned the wheel of dark energy that he turned with his gestures. The temperature in the cavern dropped and flames erupted from his open palms and raced across his body, although he was not burned. Instead, the fire seemed to tease his flesh. With a stifled groan, he climaxed; where his semen jetted onto the stone floor it hissed and spat.

  The cries coming from the prisoners were louder now, but nothing could break Brother Sequilious’s concentration. The words that he spoke had been memorised from a fragment of Chadassa manuscript. He had never before used the magic of the sub-aquatic race and, as the last of the glottal syllables died away, he braced himself for a backlash of arcane energy. Instead, he felt a thrumming of power deep within, and his hands blazed with an intense, pure light. If he held onto this power for too long, it would consume him, and so he unleashed the tide of living fire over the huddled villagers.

  They burned so fiercely that they were reduced to little more than bundles of blackened sticks within seconds. Yet still they stood, held aloft by the terrible magic that filled the chamber. The intensity of the passing of so many souls strengthened the spell and Brother Sequilious began to weave the final threads of the enchantment together.

  Turning his back on the devastation, the sorcerer stared into the calm waters of the lake, channelling the energy surrounding him into its depths. At the same time, he envisioned the Llothriall – the vastly-treasured ship that Katherine Makennon had tasked him to retrieve.

  A cool wind blew against his face and he could hear the crash and hiss of rolling surf. At first, just the merest sketch of a ship was visible above the lake, picked out in pale silver lines. If Brother Sequilious squinted, he could just make out the prow, rearing above him as though cresting the swell of a wave. But then it was gone, and, as the wind dropped, the sorcerer desperately clutched for the contact he had briefly made.

  There it was again.

  The sound of the sea was suddenly, shockingly loud, and Brother Sequilious staggered back as mountainous waves rose up all around him. He mustn’t lose his focus though, else the Llothriall would be forever lost. He stood in two locations at once – one below the ground, one above the waves, far from here – and, as the last of the villagers burned out behind him, he tried to bring these worlds together.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THERE WAS NO escape from the heat. For over a week now, the Llothriall had been becalmed, the sea an emerald mirror upon which they sat, seemingly unmoving. As the days grew longer, the temperature began to rise, and the crew escaped below deck, although even here there was no respite. With not a cloud in the sky, water had to be rationed; often, tempers would fray. Several times, Dunsany and Ignacio got into blazing rows, some so intense that Silus had to intervene. Once, when Katya had tried to calm Ignacio herself, the ex-smuggler had turned on her, shortly thereafter finding himself incapacitated and locked in a store room. Four hours confined in the stifling darkness had insured that Ignacio never lashed out again

  “Can’t you use your magic or something?” Ignacio asked Kelos one morning, as they lay on the deck, futilely praying for rain. “Can’t you just conjure up a wind to fill our sails and rain to fill our cups?”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” the mage said.

  IN THE END Kelos didn’t have to attempt any such sorcery, as they were struck by the mother of all storms.

  No one saw it coming. Once it had passed, two of the sails had to be repaired and the hull had to be patched below the waterline. The only blessing was that the sudden change in weather had finally broken the back of the heat.

  IT DIDN’T LAST. The temperature climbed again, the cloud cover boiled away and they were caught once more in a swelter upon a still sea.

  WHEN THEY WERE on the edge of despair, when they were down to their last few cupfuls of water, the storm slinked back in, pacing the ship far to starboard, before rushing in and lifting the Llothriall high on the back of an enormous wave.

  There had been a time when this would have posed little threat, when the Llothriall had been empowered by the magical gemstone at its heart and the song of the ship’s eunuch, Emuel. But the stone had been lost and Emuel no longer had any reason to sing. As they were tossed from wave to wave, all onboard thought that this would be the storm that finally pulled the Llothriall apart.

  A SHOUT FROM above had Silus racing for the stairs leading up to the maindeck, only for the boom to be the first thing that met him; the broken spar swinging round and sweeping him over the side.

  The storm was silenced as the sea took him. For a moment, Silus saw the hull of the Llothriall as it was silhouetted by lightning, before a surge carried the ship away. He watched it go for a moment, before filling his lungs with salt water and striking out after it.

  Even as the sea invigorated his body, he knew that his pursuit was futile. No matter the powers he had inherited from the Chadassa, Silus wouldn’t be able to outpace this storm. Once or twice he caught sight of the Llothriall, but the tempest departed as quickly as it had come, taking with it all trace of the ship.

  Silus surfaced and looked around. The horizon on all sides was the same featureless blue. He could barely make out where sea met sky, and he had no inkling which b
earing he should take to locate the ship. It would be all too easy to swim in entirely the wrong direction.

  A fin broke the surface not far from where he trod water. A razor dolphin, from the colouring. Silus ducked his head back down below and saw that he was surrounded by a school of twenty or so. The razor dolphins brushed up against him as they tumbled through the water, clicking and whistling in delight at this strange new creature in their midst.

  It was then that Silus realised exactly how he’d find the Llothriall.

  He raced the school of razor dolphins to the seabed and they followed, eager to outpace him, and just before Silus touched the bottom he spun back and struck for the surface, leaping from the waves, the sleek bodies of the dolphins following in his wake, the rainbow sheen of their hides dazzling in the brilliant sunlight. As much as it might have seemed otherwise to any observer, this wasn’t just Silus killing time with frivolity. Through play, he was trying to gain a hold on the razor dolphins’ minds. The first time he had encountered this species he had found their thoughts slippery, almost impossible to gain a purchase on; but now Silus was beginning to hear and comprehend the song of their thoughts.

  They wanted him to stay and play, to come hunting amongst the tuna shoals so that they could get a measure of what manner of creature he was. On any other day, Silus would have delighted in their requests, but now he had a task for them.