‘Still nothing?’ he rasped, climbing inside and glancing at the Medusi.
Anthrom took it as an afront, as he was prone to do. He was already on edge and had been since Theris came into view on the horizon. ‘Nothing? I am not nothing. I destroyed Argentor, burnt a city to the ground. I am the Prince of Theris, and you will speak to me with more respect, Cleric.’
Bemused almost to the point of rolling his eyes, Harling said, ‘I meant your powers. I gave you that Medusi, I want to know what gifts it has bestowed.’
‘It was Noctiluca who gave it to me.’
Harling nodded. ‘You should refer to her as the Goddess.’
‘I would if I were subservient.’
The High Cleric scowled, but didn’t pursue the subject immediately.
The palanquin’s bearers began their march into the city. Anthrom turned away from Harling, pulling the curtains aside and watching the city go by.
Theris was worse even than when he had left it.
Walls and houses were crumbing under the oppressive atmosphere of so many tightly packed Medusi. They had a strange effect on buildings and human constructions, warping anything except the stone foundations. There were thralls everywhere; Anthrom didn’t see a single unthralled person walking the streets who wasn’t a Cleric. Grime and dirt caked the roads, the detritus of months without maintenance of any kind. Each square was home to the womb-like bubble Medusi he’d first seen when he’d ventured into the city searching for sacrificial children; their prisoners hung suspended within distended orbs, the thralling tentacle transformed, appropriated into an umbilical cord. He couldn’t see how the victims breathed, how they ate, how they were even alive. If he had to guess, he’d say they were already dead, and were being slowly digested by the ghastly creatures.
The Medousa’s doctrine was a lie. Why couldn’t Harling see that? It was so plain to Anthrom.
He thought of the children he had betrayed; they were out here somewhere, the eyes of the Sorceress. Were they hunting down the rebels that he had seen in the sewers of the city? The rebels were the only real hope Theris had, and he’d contributed to destroying them.
He was jealous of them; somehow, persecuted as they were, they were still freer than him, skulking back for his punishment like a dog.
Anthrom looked ahead to where the dark broken palace tower stabbed up into the evening sky like a jagged knife. He was being slowly marched to his death. Why had he come back? He could have lost himself in the world out there, she would never have found him, and yet…
Here he was, a failure, despite what he’d said to Harling, seeking his mistress’ forgiveness. He would beg for it, if it came to that.
‘Are you really so misguided?’ Harling asked. His voice had lost its edge during the journey. ‘You are riding now to receive your punishment. From a creature more powerful than any in all of Arceth. And you don’t think you serve her? You failed her. She is going to kill you, do you understand? Why did you return? Are you so arrogant that you thought you would be spared?’
Anthrom stared at him for a full minute. ‘We all serve,’ he conceded. ‘I am not stupid. But I will not worship her.’
‘Then you will die.’
‘You can serve without compromise. It is the only way to preserve dignity.’
Harling laughed then coughed again. ‘You have compromised yourself for her and the power she could give you a hundred times already.’
‘But I have never worshipped her.’
‘Semantics,’ Harling said dismissively.
Again, Anthrom didn’t reply for a minute. When he did, he had changed his focus. ‘We are all under her control. You, me, the city, the whole continent. Do you think I had any choice in this? You ask why I came back? She speaks, I obey. Are you so different?’ But I still hide my true self, he thought. He told Harling what he wanted to hear, but inside he knew she could be resisted. Not completely, but enough for him to feel he was still himself. He wasn’t a mindless automaton like the thralls he’d led to their deaths.
Harling shook his head. ‘But do you?’ he asked, cutting through. ‘Do you obey her? I’m not so sure.’ What did the old man think he knew? Anthrom scowled at him. ‘If you have a skill you have not yet shown us, Anthrom, show it now. I implore you. It just might save your life.’
‘Are you so confident in your creation?’
‘Yes, I am. You are my protégé, Anthrom. You are the first with this species. But I know it works. If you keep it hidden, you will die with your secrets. What good is that? Her reign will go on, but you’ll be dead.’
Reveal it and I lose my control, he thought.
They arrived at the palace as the sun retired for the day. Anthrom emerged from the palanquin and watched the blaze of salmon pink across the sky as it dipped below the horizon, giving way to the darkness.
Entering the palace completed the effect. As the doors closed behind him and Harling, all light disappeared. He felt the closeness, the cloying fetid stink of Medusi in congregation. Harling led him across the large atrium, its walls peeling, wood panelling cracking. Black mould grew everywhere, encroaching on ceilings and carpets with its own skinny tentacles. Down the wide staircase was the cleanest place around, simply because of how new it was. Give it a few months, Anthrom thought, and it will look as filthy as everything else.
Harling didn’t follow. ‘You’re not coming?’ asked Anthrom incredulous. ‘I would have thought you’d get some satisfaction from this.’
‘Whatever you might think of me,’ the High Cleric sighed, ‘I do not wish to watch you die.’ He gestured down the stairs. ‘Goodbye Anthrom.’ Its finality just made Anthrom scowl as he passed.
Descending slowly, footsteps echoing, Anthrom could feel the pull of Noctiluca’s coercive magic take hold of him once more, soft tendrils of influence grasping at him one by one, until together they were inescapable. All thought of the outside, of Harling, escaped him, his existence now hinging on this moment.
There was no turning back now.
His mistress sat enthroned, in a radiant circle of blue light; the Medusi Amnion bathed the throne room in its ethereal brilliance. But however bright it was, its light could not dispel the shadows that crept in at every opportunity. The Medousa had surrounded herself with a forest of tiny blue thralls, Cephean children all of whom stared at Anthrom as he approached. They were sightless, their eyes unfocussed, looking into the middle distance. He had the strange sensation they were seeing through him.
Her entire brood was here, not out in the city. It felt like they were here to judge him. He saw Urth, Wend and the others. He’d done this to them. He couldn’t convince himself they were happy but they seemed content at least, eager to serve their new surrogate mother, which had been the point. Eager to kill him at a single order.
It would be fitting. He imagined the thirty or so children rushing at him, ripping him apart with those dead eyes hardly registering what they were doing.
And if it wasn’t them that killed him, it would be Noctiluca. He remembered those he witnessed in the throne room above, their heads exploding with the concentrated coercive magic of her voice.
Anthrom. Her voice in his mind, like a nightmare. Welcome home. Tell me, what happened in Argentor? A link was severed. She sat staring down at him with those depthless orbs, waiting.
He knew what she meant. He’d done that. He’d severed the link, killing a Cephean to stop her seeing his failure. ‘Argentor is no more, destroyed as you asked,’ he said, trying to sound assured.
I asked you to thrall the city, she said. He could feel his own pulse in his ears. Her voice cut through like a deadly snake bite. Yet I do not feel a single new thrall added to my army.
Anthrom’s throat was dry. He did not want to admit his failure, but it was impossible not to. ‘You are correct, Noctiluca.’
In fact, you lost thousands of thralls due to a carelessly fought battle. Tens of thousands of Medusi.
Anthrom simply nodded. No point adding o
il to the flame.
You were arrogant, she said. You wasted the superior forces I gave you, throwing them into traps and feints.
She was at fault here too. She had also been arrogant. Was she not in control of the same army? But he knew if he blamed her his remaining life would be measured in seconds.
And when you reached the city?
‘The city was empty,’ said Anthrom. ‘It had been evacuated ahead of our arrival. It was filled with explosive traps.’
Evacuated? Where did they go?
‘For a long time we could not discern that-’
Where? She leaned in. Was that the remains of a tongue he saw in the maw of her face? He shuddered.
‘North.’ His throat was like the barren rocky desert he’d seen beyond the gate. ‘There was a gatehouse to the North lands. You could see them many miles in the distance.
And you did not think to pursue them? With your numbers, you could have overwhelmed them.
Anthrom wasn’t sure what to say. ‘But you demanded I retur-’
I told you to thrall the city, she interrupted, obliterating his thoughts. The crowd you could see on the horizon line was the city. Why did you return a failure, when you could have returned triumphant?
That word, failure. That was what he didn’t want to hear. ‘It was Aurelia,’ he blurted desperately.
Your sister? She recoiled. Are you blaming her for your failings?
‘You told me she was dead.’
Her skin pinched around the black pits. An oversight. Are you accusing Faibryn of deceit or foolishness? He realised then that he’d accused her directly. He had just come dangerously close to death, yet Noctiluca had angled her question to give him an escape route.
He took the offer and blamed the traitor. ‘Whether he lied or was tricked, Faibryn is the one that failed you. He was not there to meet us. He did not deliver the city.’
What happened to him?
‘We found his headless body on a balcony in his father’s palace. And his head,’ Anthrom said, trying not to sound gleeful.
This stopped Noctiluca in her tracks. She lowered her gaze, seemed to shrink a little. Was that remorse? Guilt? Was she sad that her spy had been killed? It seemed at odds with her gearing up to kill him.
He decided to focus on his sister, anyone but himself. ‘Aurelia killed your thralls, she arranged and then evacuated the city.’
She killed him? Noctiluca was still fixated on Faibryn.
‘Yes. I assume so.’
And you couldn’t defeat her in battle?
‘It wasn’t my fault. She had time to plan, because Faibryn failed.’
You let her win, Anthrom. Your sister.
‘No, never. She didn’t win, I beat her. I destroyed every defence she put in place, overran her forces. I combed the city.’
She shook her head. You allowed Aurelia time to plan and evacuate. She has taken my army and made it her own. She will be doubly hard to destroy now, lost in the Northlands, and it is all down to you, Anthrom.
Somehow she was still blaming him. ‘It wasn’t-’
Don’t argue with me. Let’s not forget when you discovered the empty city, instead of making the choice to pursue, or even informing me, you murdered one of my Cephean. Poor Malik. Unforgiveable.
‘Noctiluca, I-’
And then you crawl home with your tail between your legs. She stood, her tall frame menacing, standing over him. What did you expect coming back here? You have failed me, Anthrom. And you know how I deal with failures.
Anthrom fell to his knees in panic. He’d known he would beg. ‘No, Noctiluca, please. Allow me to go into exile like Crescen, to retire to the temple. I will never bother you again. Please just don’t-’
Quiet!
When Anthrom tried to speak again, the wave of coercive power that went through his skull brought blood spurting from his nose. His mouth clamped shut cutting off any argument. She could control him, especially when he was not in control of himself. Of his fear.
You are a failure, Noctiluca continued. This experiment is over. You couldn't even manifest a power, when thralled to a Medusi bred from the great Amnion.
Anthrom could feel his own secretive nature was going to be the end of him. But still he was reluctant to reveal the one thing that gave him power over her. His secret was his. It was all he had left. Was he prepared to take it to the grave? He couldn’t speak, did he even have a choice anymore?
Come here. She spoke, and he obeyed, climbing to his feet again. Serve me one final time, as a lesson to these new Cephean of what happens to failures.
This was it, the moment he had dreaded. Anthrom approached, propelling himself forward with an effort of will. He climbed the steps to the throne and came to a halt in amongst the children. Noctiluca took his chin in her hand, her sharp claws scratching his skin. I’m sorry it has to end like this, I had high hopes you, Anthrom.
It felt as if he were watching this happen to someone else, like he was a witness to his own death. He felt the maelstrom of power coalesce inside his mind, but it felt curiously painless, absent.
Noctiluca’s hand released him and clenched into a fist. Her eyes widened and he could see the effort in her contorted face.
He felt his mind like an ember fanned white hot, filling with power. He felt it expand until it touched the edges of his cranium, but still more power kept trying to enter. Then suddenly it burst. Blood rushed out of his nose, ears, from the tear ducts of his eyes. His brain exploded, cracking his skull, his eyes rolled up to show the whites. Anthrom’s body withered, collapsing to the ground.
It was the strangest sensation; to watch yourself die, to know that the person you faced hadn’t just threatened, but had followed through with that threat. Most never got the chance to see the moment he was seeing, the aftermath of what would have been their own death.
He didn’t know how long he could maintain it, keeping the illusion of his body there on the ground in front of him. Could he leave the room? Was he completely invisible? No, not quite. But it had worked; he had altered her perception.
Noctiluca relaxed back into her throne, folded her legs. Pity, she said, he had such promise. It was intoxicating just to watch her reaction to what she’d done, to watch the children staring now at his broken corpse. If only he could have reined in his defiance.
Anthrom let the illusion fall, stopped working his magic on the perception of all those in the chamber. From their perspective the body on the ground dissolved away into nothing and Anthrom appeared still stood where he had just a few moments before he had stepped forward.
He heard Harling, now standing in the back of the chamber, give a sharp stunned cough as he saw what happened. The old bastard had come to witness his death despite his assurance he wouldn’t.
The thralled Cephean children reacted to something finally, most rearing back in shock, looking to their mother for guidance.
Noctiluca wasn’t shocked, or at least nothing like that showed on her skeletal face
Noctiluca was impressed.
That rictus grin of hers formed slowly, pulling sharply on her taut skin. She pushed herself to her feet again, descended the cold stone steps, walked through where Anthrom’s body had lain just moments before. She circled him, drawing the thralling tentacle with her as she moved.
She observed him from all sides.
You defy me once again, Anthrom. You fail even to die.
She was angry despite the smile. He could feel it radiating off her. He had taken a great risk, the greatest risk of all. But he sensed he had made the right call. He had demonstrated just how far he would go both to serve her, but also to be his own man.
Unto death.
I should kill you for this affront. What lesson are we demonstrating if I let you live? She gestured to the gathered Cephean. What will the children take from this? That open defiance is not punished? That disobedience and failure is treated with impunity?
‘They will learn that you recognise and reward
power,’ Anthrom said. ‘You have seen it now. Do you really want to destroy it after seeing it in all its glory?’
You waited too long to show me you were useful. Far too long.
‘I wanted to impress you.’
So much that you waited until I killed you? What if it hadn’t worked?
Anthrom shrugged, trying to show a conviction to his actions he hadn’t actually had.
What else can you do?
‘I can alter my appearance. I was a grey haired general when speaking to my sister before the battle,’ he said. ‘I can hide my Medusi. Hide the fact that I’m thralled. I can make you believe things you are not really seeing.’
And you can become invisible?
‘Almost. Something must be showing. Like the corpse on the floor. But I can project somewhere close by and hide myself in plain sight.’ Surely her mind was considering the ramifications, the uses she could put him to now. It would be a waste to kill him. She had to see that.
But she began to scowl.
‘And this is just the beginning,’ he added. ‘I may find I can do more.’
Your perception magic worked on me, she said. When that boomed through his mind he knew she was not amused. It was possible to trick her and he had that power. She knew it. That cannot be tolerated.
‘But Noctiluca, I would nev-’
But we know you can, and we know your defiant mind cannot be wholly coerced. I thought I had broken you, but you cannot be trusted. You force me to threaten you instead. This is the only time I will warn you.
She looked deep inside him, her voice louder than ever before.
Never use your illusions on me, Anthrom. Never again.
He felt the blood spurt from his nose, but this time it was no illusion.
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 63
