by Anthony Ryan
“Bloody nag,” Vaelin muttered as the stallion’s head dipped to nudge him. “I expected you sooner.”
Derka snorted and nudged him again. With victory achieved he apparently expected them to ride away, but the icy chill creeping into the core of Vaelin’s being left no illusions that he would be riding anywhere. Despite his infinite weariness, he felt a burgeoning panic. With death so close he wanted to remember so much, bring so many faces to mind, but time conspired against him and he could only summon one before the shadow claimed him.
PART III
For those of us who spend our days attempting to parse meaning from the myriad enigmas of existence, one essential dilemma will forever remain unresolved. Life, you must understand, is dependent upon death. For new life to flourish, what has gone before must perish. The deer must die so that the tiger may live, the tiger must die so that it does not eat all the deer and its cubs will have prey to hunt. We, in our arrogance, imagine ourselves removed from this cycle. Have we not crafted wonders? Have we not divined the course of the stars and measured the weight of the world entire? Have we not cloaked ourselves in this concordance of trickery and comfort we choose to name “civilisation”? Yes, we have done all these things, and yet in essence we remain no different to the tiger or the deer. For a new concordance, a new civilisation to rise, the old must and will fall. The Emerald Empire may call itself eternal, but it is no more than rice paper drifting ever closer to the flame.
—FINAL STATEMENT OF THE MOST ESTEEMED KUAN-SHI, PHILOSOPHER AND POET, EXECUTED FOR TREASON AND HERETICAL TRANSGRESSION, EMERALD EMPIRE, C. LATE FIRST CENTURY OF THE DIVINE DYNASTY
LURALYN’S ACCOUNT
The Third Question
My people have no calendars, at least none that have ever been written down. The obsession with carefully tracking the passage of days amongst those who live beyond the bounds of the Iron Steppe is seen as baffling and pointless by the Stahlhast. Can they not see the stars in the sky? Can they not feel the chill of a coming winter or the warmth of summer? When the days grow warm it is time to hunt or fight. When frost sparkles on the Steppe it is time to pitch tents for the long camp and guard your food stocks well.
But there is one particular day that must be marked, its arrival being so important. When the star the priests call the Herald of the Unseen appears between the two stones that form the gate to the Great Tor, it is time for the one considered worthy of elevation to Mestra-Skeltir to face the question of the Unseen. And so, as the wind took on the bite of winter and the first icy jewels beaded the grass, we gathered to watch the Herald crest the horizon so that my brother could answer the third and final question.
There was a sense of inevitability to the whole affair, the great swath of encamped Skeld possessed of a celebratory mood that left little room for doubt. Regardless of what rituals the priests might insist on, Kehlbrand was now acknowledged as Mestra-Skeltir by almost all who called themselves Stahlhast. Furthermore, he was the chosen Darkblade of the Unseen, greater than any mere man. All Skeltir followed his word and the artisans considered him a god, or at least godlike in his generous and merciful deeds. I was as lacking in uncertainty as any other that first night; as the songs grew loud and the Stahlhast fell to their revels, there was no doubt in my mind. Tomorrow my brother would answer the third question, ascend to Mestra-Skeltir and the great southward march would begin. What I didn’t know, what the True Dream had never revealed to me, was that the Mestra-Dirhmar also had a question for me.
I spent the evening in the company of my small coterie of Divine Blood, keen to stay clear of the carnality and inevitable violence as the celebrations wore on. There were six in all now, each one plucked from the ranks of the artisans and given a new name to go with the Darkblade’s favour. There would be more to come over the course of the following year, Gifted souls found amidst the ruin of town and camp, but they were different from these first six. Being born into the Stahlhast had provided me with siblings aplenty, and more cousins than I can easily remember, but apart from Kehlbrand I had never known the true nature of family, not until I crafted my own.
“Ouch!” Varij cursed, snatching his hand away from Eresa’s, much to the hilarity of the others. It was a game they played, holding her hand for as long as possible as she steadily increased the flow of power through her fingertips. Varij, for reasons that were becoming increasingly obvious, always held on the longest.
“You made it worse that time,” he accused, flexing his hand and blowing on the flesh.
“A man who can crush stone can’t stand a little extra tingle?” Eresa chided in response. She held her hand out to Shuhlan, a chunky former slave from one of the more northerly tors. She had been a scrawny thing when I found her, charming mice into the snares she set without understanding how. In those days she would have happily sworn loyalty to a mange-ridden dog if it meant a full belly, and her appetite had barely abated since.
“No thanks,” she said around a mouthful of freshly roasted goat haunch.
“You’re no fun.” Eresa pouted and extended her hand to me. “Divine One?”
She gave an impish smirk at my glare of annoyance. Much as I insisted on being addressed simply by my name and nothing more, they continually contrived ever more grandiose titles for me.
I was about to rebuke her, yet again, when I saw Juhkar’s tall form rise and move towards the tent flap. He was unusual amongst the former slaves in that he had never laboured at the tors. Instead the Skeltir who captured him as a boy had quickly discerned his uncanny facility for tracking game, often without benefit of tracks. So he had been spared labour over the succeeding years but not the lash, as his master was an impatient hunter. Consequently, it hadn’t troubled my conscience when Kehlbrand ordered Obvar to cut the fellow’s head off for refusing to give up what he termed his best dog.
“Someone’s coming,” Juhkar said, turning to me with warning in his eyes. “Someone like us.”
I felt the familiar sensation of gathering power as the others all swiftly rose from their mats to assume a well-practised formation around me. Eresa and Varij moved to place themselves between my person and the tent flap, whilst Kihlen, the youthfully pretty master of flames, moved to my left. His identically Gifted and equally pretty twin sister, Jihla, fell in on my right and Juhkar moved to guard the rear. Shuhlan, meanwhile, concealed herself in the shadows at the far end of the tent where a massive hunting dog waited for her command. Kehlbrand’s ascendancy had done much to quell the fractious nature of the Hast, but occasionally deadly feuding continued and I had never been so secure in my position as to consider myself immune from such things.
The man who stooped to enter the tent was tall, near as tall as Obvar in fact, but considerably thinner. I recognised him as one of the lesser priests, often seen in the background whenever the Mestra-Dirhmar conducted a ritual. Like all those called to the priesthood he had a gaunt aspect, hollow cheeks below sunken eyes and skin prematurely lined with age. I could feel the power in his veins that marked him as one of the Divine Blood, but it was a small thing in comparison to those he faced in this tent, like a song whispered into a gale.
“What do you want?” I said.
His gaze roved over each of us in turn, narrowing momentarily into an unmistakable grimace of purest envy before the usual impassivity returned. “The Mestra-Dirhmar . . .” he began, hesitating before mouthing the next word with distasteful reluctance, “. . . requests your presence.”
“What for?”
“His intentions are not for me to know. I serve the Unseen and they speak through him. Will you deny their word?”
The old man is just a liar and you are his deluded slave. I caged the words behind my clenched teeth. The priests had always possessed the power to arouse my anger, an anger I knew would cloud wits I needed this night.
“I’ll deny anything that would obstruct my brother’s divine path,” I said.
The
lesser priest’s grimace returned for an instant, this time mixed with palpable anger. But, however great his frustration and whatever power lurked in his veins, he must have known he couldn’t hope to match the combined gifts of those who shielded me.
“The Mestra-Dirhmar,” he continued, tone hard but rich in unspoken meaning, “bid me tell you that he wishes to share a dream with you, a dream of truth.”
Did they always know? I wondered, meeting his stare. If so, why did they spare me?
“Where?” I asked, hating the uncertain grate of my voice.
Seeing my fear, the corners of his mouth twitched in what I suspected had been the closest they had come to a smile in decades. “The Sepulchre.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
I refused to meet him alone, taking Eresa and Varij with me as I trod the stone steps into the darkness. I told the others to wait in the Sepulchre itself, commanding in the southland tongue that they exact a bloody and fiery punishment on the assembled lesser priests should any screams or commotion sound from below.
I knew what lay beneath the Sepulchre, of course, all Stahlhast did, though few ever saw it and when they spoke of it they did so in whispers. I had long assumed it must be a monstrous and wondrous thing, so was faintly disappointed by the sight of a black stone plinth veined in gold rather than the multi-hued and glowing column of my imagination. Still, there was a power to it. I could sense it as I drew closer. It was similar in some ways to the feeling of being in proximity to another of the Divine Blood, but less constant, bringing to mind a hornet’s nest in its constant, discordant thrum.
The Mestra-Dirhmar stood with his hands clasped together and head lowered in contemplation of the stone, remaining still and failing to acknowledge my presence until I voiced an impatient cough. Even then it was the space of several heartbeats before he spoke, surprising me with the sorrow that coloured his voice.
“Do you know what you have done?” he asked.
“Served my brother in his divine mission,” I replied promptly, suspecting some form of trap in his question.
“His divine mission,” he repeated, speaking each word with soft, bitter precision. He fell silent once more, eyes lingering on the stone before slowly raising them to mine. “You saved him, didn’t you? The battle with the Wohten all those years ago. Your vision, your dream of truth.”
I scanned the chamber as my unease deepened, Eresa and Varij stepping closer to me as they sensed my agitation.
“We’re alone here,” the Mestra-Dirhmar assured me. “At least,” he added, extending a hand so that his palm hovered over the stone, “as alone as one can be in this place.”
“How long have you known?” I asked. “About the dreams?”
“Since your first visit to the Great Tor.” A tic of amusement showed in his gaze as he watched my hand move instinctively to the tiger’s tooth beneath my robe. “You think that kept you from us? A worthless trinket carved with gibberish. No, it was your brother’s threats that stayed my hand, coward that I was. And when I realised the depth of my folly, you had already gathered this lot.” The priest jerked his chin at Eresa and Varij.
“And yet, with my nature revealed, you never demanded I be brought here. Why?”
“Because it would have given him the excuse he so desperately wants to destroy our order and claim the Sepulchre for himself. That was at least partly his reasoning in having you find these others. Useful as they have been, they were bait in his trap.” He angled his head, eyebrow raised into a mocking arc. “Didn’t you know?”
“All lies.” I voiced a scornful laugh, shaking my head. “That’s all you ever had to offer, old man.”
I turned to leave but stopped when he spoke on. His voice lacked any particular urgency but the soft sincerity it held, so rich in fear as well as sorrow, was enough to freeze me in place.
“He was supposed to die that day.”
I turned back to find him once again contemplating the stone. His features were a mix of weariness and something it took me a moment of puzzled scrutiny to recognise, it being so unexpected. Hate. He hates this thing.
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
“The battle with the Wohten. It had been foreseen. The warrior on the white horse, the warrior you warned him against. Your brother was supposed to die. It was why we hadn’t acted against him before, allowing his strength to grow, allowing him to build his alliances. He was useful in that, bringing the Stahlhast together, uniting us. So we let him live, assured in his eventual demise, despite the danger he posed.”
He trailed off into a thin sigh, the hate on his face subsiding into shame. “The arrogance of power is a terrible thing. It blinds you, succours the illusion of control, but there is no controlling this.” He flicked a hand at the stone. “As there is now no controlling your brother. Tell me, what do you imagine he will do when he is named Mestra-Skeltir?”
“Fulfil the divine mission ordained by the Unseen centuries ago. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Ah, yes. The great march to the Golden Sea. You called me a liar, and you were right. It is the role of priests to lie, and our divine mission is perhaps the greatest of lies. Long ago, when the danger posed by this thing was first realised, our forebears faced a quandary. How to bind a fierce and very pragmatic warrior people to something they could never see? A god whose word they could never hear? With lies, of course, lies that promised everything. One day the great lord of the Stahlhast will arise and lead us to claim the southlands for our own, so that all might know the blessings of the Unseen. And it worked. The mere promise of a divine leader and a glorious future sufficed to keep the Skelds in bondage to the Sepulchre for more than a thousand years. But it was a promise never to be fulfilled, until your brother made it real.”
He fixed me with a glare then, hard with judgemental accusation. “You must have known what he would be, or at least suspected. He will soon unleash an ocean of blood, much of it our own. All because you stood in the way of destiny. Why?”
Once again I was tempted to leave, simply walk away and deafen myself to his questions. What right did he have to demand answers? This bitter old man. But I didn’t leave. Liar though he was, I had heard enough truth in his words to keep me standing there, facing his judgement.
“Love,” I said. “I saved him because I love him.”
“Then you are as much his victim as we will be. He has no love for you, for anyone. It is beyond him. Power.” He nodded at the stone and I felt the hornet’s nest pulse for a second, as if sensing his enmity. “The power that rests in this. That is all he wants. Power we have long sought to contain, for that is the true mission of the Stahlhast. Fierce we were and we became fiercer still, spurred on by generations of priests, for we knew that to secure this thing would require strength, cruelty even. Countless slaves have died to make us great, all to ensure no other hand can lay claim to this.”
“The stone is the source of the Divine Blood,” I said, a disorientating ache of incomprehension building in my head. Furthermore, a deep, painful nausea was growing in my belly. It occurred to me that the old man intended to inflict harm upon me after all, that he possessed a gift capable of inflicting illness. But the suspicion was banished by another pulse of power from the stone and I knew he wasn’t making me sick. It was.
“We dug it from the earth generations gone,” I went on, voice thick with rising pain. “Through this has come the guidance of the Unseen . . .”
“Guidance?” His laugh was loud and full of mockery, abruptly silencing my rote recital of dogma. “The Unseen offer no guidance, child. They didn’t choose us as the agents of their ascension. They do not bless us any more than a herdsman blesses the beasts he leads to the slaughter pen.”
“Liar!” I rasped as the pain in my gut redoubled, causing me to stagger. Varij and Eresa came swiftly to my side, she catching me before I could fall. Varij must have
possessed some instinctive understanding of the source of my distress for he crouched in front of me, hand extended towards the stone.
“Stop that!” the Mestra-Dirhmar snapped as I felt Varij begin to summon his gift. The priest’s voice possessed such a note of accustomed command that Varij hesitated, though his arm remained raised.
“You might be able to crumble stone, boy,” the priest said, “but you won’t even scratch this. For countless years many have tried, but it resists all injury.” When Varij still failed to lower his arm the priest gave a disgusted snort and shrugged. “Very well,” he said, standing back. “Feel free to try, just don’t expect to survive the experience. They’ll surely appreciate a meal like you.”
Varij turned to me, confusion and indecision on his face. I shook my head and he nodded, lowering his arm and assisting Eresa in helping me to my feet. The nausea had lessened a little, allowing me to make a faltering step towards the stone.
“Then what is it?” I demanded of the priest. I recall now just how much I wanted him to be lying, for this all to be yet more deceit. Everything I knew, everything I felt, railed against this old man’s words. Kehlbrand has always cherished me, he has given me a family, a mission . . . All my inner protestations slipped away as I looked into the eyes of the Mestra-Dirhmar and knew him to be speaking only truth.
“It is a lock,” he told me, “on a very old and rotten door, one your brother intends to break to pieces and unleash what waits behind.”
