The Emperor raised his arms, spreading them wide, and a grinding weight came down upon them both, setting the air itself to groaning. A deep rumbling and shuddering shook the barn, sending dust drifting across the lamplight. In the rear of the barn a cow lowed nervously.
‘I opened myself to the Son,’ the Emperor continued, in a deeper and more commanding voice, ‘and he came. He changed me. At every stage he asked my permission and, after examining what he had done, I granted it. He enlarged my mind and changed me for the better. One of the many benefits, Torve, is that the halfwit Lenares can no longer read me. She will never associate me with the mask-wearing Emperor.
‘And neither did anyone else. The court acknowledged the mask, just as they did the afternoon we played a prank on them and you wore it. But under the instruction of the Son, I shed my mask and walked through the corridors and halls of the Talamaq Palace. None marked me. Even you did not mark me.
‘It was that day I conceived my plan to secure absolute control of the Empire. Titular head to a murderous group of Alliances does not offer me the security I need, nor the power I desire. I used the fool Duon as the excuse to organise an expedition with a twofold purpose: to go north myself in search of the secret of immortality, and to be rid of the Alliances forever. So I contacted the Marasmians.’
Torve staggered and slumped against the bath, slopping water everywhere. ‘You contacted the Marasmians? You masterminded the death of your own army?’
His master’s smile was wide and self-satisfied. ‘Indeed, my friend. We lost many soldiers that day, but the price was worth it to be rid of so many drones. We can grow more soldiers! You see the logic of it, do you not? Many times we talked about the Alliances and what it would take to break their power over the Empire. Now they are broken, without any cost to Talamaq. Not a house burned, not a single murder on the streets. A plan breathtaking in its elegance.’
‘Yours or his?’
‘Now, Torve, no need for bitterness. Changed though I am, I am still your master. I hope I have demonstrated this on our nocturnal forays. To tell the truth, in an attempt to convince you I am still whom I once was, I have been more vigorous in my pursuit of answers to our eternal question. Yes, it was the Son’s plan, but it was my execution, and it could not have been more perfect. Even the intervention of those interesting desert children served my purpose, delivering us from the Marasmians who were about, I suspect, to double-cross us. And here we are, in the company of powerful men, none of whom suspect my real identity.’
Certainly Torve had not suspected the mercenary of being his Emperor. He’d wondered about that in the weeks after Dryman had revealed himself, but he’d not seen the Emperor maskless since his tenth birthday, his Masking Day. So how was he to read his childhood companion in the soldier’s bland face? The voice ought to have given him away, but it had subtly altered; deeper and huskier now than the voice he remembered. Altered just enough to confound Lenares, who had repeatedly expressed her frustration at her ignorance.
So now his master carried the Son with him.
Torve decided to make it his mission to find out what benefit the Emperor thought to derive from the arrangement, and what cost he—and, by extension, everyone—might be paying.
If only Lenares were here, he said to himself.
The Emperor selected their victim with patience and care. The village of Foulwater was a small one, with perhaps five hundred residents, and as a consequence the starlit roads were almost empty: few people were about after dark. Torve and his master waited for perhaps an hour and saw no more than a handful. Those who were to be found outside appeared to be fetching things for their guests inconvenienced by the destruction of the Yacoppica Cliffs Tea House: food, drink, washwater and washcloths.
As soon as Torve saw the woman, he knew his master would not be able to resist her. Her face was shadowed, but it was clearly the same woman who had hosted them in the tea house that morning.
The Emperor stepped into the street. ‘Excuse me, we’ve lost our way,’ he said. ‘Can you help us?’
‘Of course.’ Her face was drawn, weary in appearance; the bags under her eyes were recent additions to an already unflattering appearance. A day searching for a lost workmate can do that to a person, Torve considered. ‘You’re staying at the Nevem place. If you return the way you have come—’
Her breath hissed as the Emperor placed his knife against her belly. She didn’t cry out. She would later, Torve knew. Oh, lady, you should have cried out. Perhaps someone would have heard.
‘You know what this is?’ the Emperor said.
‘I know.’ Remarkably calm. ‘I have no money, but the village would be happy—’
He moved until he had the knife pressed against the small of her back. ‘You do not yet know what we want,’ he whispered into her ear, and this intimacy alerted her to the likely nature of this encounter.
She took a deep breath, that was all, as Dryman forced her along the street and down a side alley, away from the houses and past a smithy on the edge of town. Her chance to call for help gone.
‘You don’t mean to leave me alive, do you?’ she said, her eyes darting right and left. Her voice had thinned, as though forced through a constricted throat.
‘That really depends on how well you answer our questions,’ Dryman said, in control, doubtless already moving towards the state of exultation that was his immediate reward for these excursions.
‘In other words, no.’
The woman shrank visibly before them. Then she stumbled, as though losing the strength in her legs. The blade must have bitten her, for she hissed again, and Torve watched a darker stain slowly spread amid the dark shadow of her back. The woman began to shake. Early for the shakes, but she already knows what we’re about.
They walked for perhaps twenty minutes, leaving the town well behind. The Emperor found a ridgeline and surveyed the surrounding land, looking for a secluded area. In the darkness Torve could see little but wooded slopes. Perhaps the god within the Emperor had augmented the man’s sight. It would certainly explain his ability to conduct this business in the dark.
What is the Son making of this? Is he shocked? Or—more likely—is this perverted appetite one of the reasons he chose the Emperor as his host?
There appeared to be no dwellings nearby. The Emperor shepherded the woman down into a bush-lined gully—a place that during the day would be of undoubted beauty—and bade her sit down beside a tree. Nearby a stream gurgled in the darkness.
‘Ropes,’ the Emperor murmured, and Torve pulled them from his pack. The woman saw them and hissed again, the sound this time accompanied by an involuntary exclamation. Part of Torve’s role was to show her the ropes as he bound her feet, to let her know there was no escaping them. Her face sagged and silent tears began to flow. Despite this, Torve thought her brave. He’d often wondered how he would react if he became one of the Emperor’s victims. Bravery and cowardice both came to the same end, however.
‘Bad things happen to punish people for their wrongdoing, don’t they?’ the Emperor asked. It was one of his standard questions. Victims always agreed, hoping to convince him they were innocent of wrongdoing and therefore wrongly held.
But not this woman.
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Bad things happen for a variety of reasons. In this case they will happen because bad men choose to take advantage of the goodwill of our village.’
‘Ah, a philosopher,’ the Emperor breathed. ‘We are fortunate.’
‘No, you are foolish. The poor girl with you was right in what she said this morning: you don’t listen. I told you then I have been trained to interpret people’s personalities. Do you not think in twenty years of teahouse service I have seen every type of behaviour known? More than long enough to reflect on good and evil. To know you for what you are. A madman.’
The Emperor grunted, clearly puzzled by the woman’s boldness in the face of her fear.
‘So you want to question me,’ she con
tinued. ‘You’re wasting your time. If what I witnessed this morning is any guide, you’ll not listen to the answers anyway.’
The knife flashed towards her chin, held back at the last moment but still nicking her skin. Remarkable control by the Emperor, but it was matched by the woman’s continued commentary in the face of death. She began speaking again after barely a pause.
‘This is not the first time you’ve done this: you are far too polished and not nervous enough. So I have no doubt there is a trail of tortured bodies behind you. Ample proof that you have never listened, never learned, and have suffered repeated failures.’
Was the woman trying to hasten her own death by making the Emperor angry? She could not possibly contend with him. The more likely result would be prolonging her pain. Torve wanted to counsel her, to advise her to keep quiet, but he knew his role tonight and was compelled to keep to it.
The Emperor had decided to play the chief role, and began his work on her. He took even more care than usual, playing the woman as though she was some sort of organic musical instrument. She whimpered, bit her lip until the blood flowed, then screamed, and her eyes began that darting dance with which Torve was so familiar. They all did it. Will help come? Do I hear someone? Is anybody there? Thoughts like these no doubt flickered through her mind as her body began to bruise and bleed and break.
Torve found himself wishing there were ways he might overcome the breeding of three thousand years. To disobey just once; to break the chains binding him to this hateful man. To pick up the pipe and bash and bash and bash him…
Peta Onacanthia knew she would die tonight, and the death would not be easy. On the contrary, it would be terrible, worse than she could imagine. No matter what she said or did, how clever or submissive she was, she would not see another dawn. The dawns here—aaah, a finger gave way to something the man was doing; she would not look, refused to look, but she could not hold back the scream—the dawns here were so beautiful. She always asked for the earliest shift at the tea house so she could watch the pulsing yellow sun push its way up from the sea and emerge swirling and steaming into the sky. This day had dawned in low cloud, the sunrise hardly noticed: had she known it was the last one she would ever see, she—aaah! God of the sea, another finger; she shrieked out pain, anger and bewilderment, powerless to prevent her display of vulnerability. Had she known this would be her end, she would have paid more attention to the dawn. Then, she supposed, had she known, she would have run. Let someone else be taken.
They haven’t even asked my name. That she should be murdered like this, so impersonally! To these cruel men she could have been anyone, could have been that useless Belain from Northend. No, don’t wish ill on others. Just a body to them, a body with limits to explore. To invade, to annex, to destroy.
‘You are suffering,’ said the man with dead eyes, the one who was doing the terrible things to her. ‘Far beyond anything you’ve endured before. But there is much worse to come.’
‘You are wrong,’ she panted, trying to keep her wits together. ‘I’ve endured worse on the birthing bed. Not something you would know. And as I die I’ll hold the memories of my beautiful children in my mind. I won’t see you. I won’t feel your touch. You won’t exist.’
The man nodded, as though trying to memorise her words. As though taking notes.
‘Denial,’ he said to his silent accomplice. ‘They all deny something in the end.’
‘Is that what you are doing?’ she asked him. ‘A study of pain?’
‘You’re a clever woman for a village drab. A study, indeed, but of death, not of pain. To learn from those about to die how one might avoid it. Thus, I want you to tell me: of what are you most afraid? The dying, or death itself? Pain or oblivion? What lies do you tell yourself to rationalise the nothingness to come? Everyone dies in terror: is such deep fear a necessary ingredient for death to occur?’
The man’s left hand, in which hers lay with her last unbroken finger stretched out, quivered as he asked the question. Ah, she thought, despite her pain. I see your secret.
‘No lies,’ she said. He lifted the pliers and her hand, though firmly held, contracted involuntarily, causing her fingers to erupt in a cascade of agony. A minute or so later, when she could think again, she continued. ‘No lies. I’m not afraid of death. Not like you; you’re terrified. If you’d ever had a real friend or family you would understand the bittersweetness of passing. And its necessity in the order of things, to clear the way for the next generation. No sweetness for you, only bitterness. No next generation, only you, forever and ever. But unlike you, I will be mourned, then remembered with fondness and love.’
‘Oh? Within a month your family will be fighting over your possessions.’ The dead-eyed man smiled thinly at the thought. ‘I’ve seen it happen, even in the wealthiest houses. A year and you will be forgotten by your precious next generation. It will be as though you never existed.’
‘Not so, ignorant one. Those who you say will forget were born of my body. The only way it would be as though I had never existed would be…’ She faltered, not wanting to lead him.
But he was sharp, her killer.
‘I could, you know,’ he said, leaning closer. ‘I have the power. I have your thread in my hand, and I’m about to burn it out of the tapestry of the world. I could follow the threads of anyone entangled with you. Burn them out, destroy them. I could not be stopped.’
She wanted to beg him, implore him not to do it, but such words would only encourage him. Feign indifference.
‘Even if you were a god, you could not erase the past.’
She hoped the desperation edging her voice was not audible to the man’s ears. Better to say nothing; but anything was preferable to the sound of her own screams.
‘Don’t you fear oblivion?’ he asked, his voice an obscene caress. He set her hand down on a stone, and held her wrist. ‘Hammer, Torve. Surely any kind of life, even a life filled with pain’—he struck her remaining finger a brutal blow with the hammer, shattering her top joint, and she shrieked—‘is preferable to everlasting absence.’
This time she blacked out for a moment. But as soon as she could talk, she did, panting out the pain. ‘I’ve had a good life. I’m not afraid of the sleep to come. I deserve a rest.’
His features soured. ‘You do not fear because you lack the imagination.’
‘For what? To entangle myself trying to imagine what it’s like without the ability to imagine? What sort of accursed fool are you, wasting your life enquiring of the dying? Don’t you realise the person really dying here is you?’
She drew a shuddering breath, then fixed his horrible eyes with her most compassionate gaze.
‘Why not live?’ she asked, and threw her entire soul into the question.
He struck her then, his fist a god-augmented ball of anger. Her head jerked to one side. Blood mixed with spittle began to flow from her mouth, and fluid leaked from a cut below her eye.
‘This experiment is flawed,’ he said to Torve as he waited for the woman to regain consciousness. ‘These subjects live such predictable, mundane lives they never spare the time to consider death.’
Torve judged his words carefully, then spoke with what he hoped was the right amount of detachment. ‘I am beginning to suspect, master, that the question is not amenable to being answered in this fashion. I believe we may need to consider another approach.’
‘Perhaps,’ his master said, as the woman stirred. ‘I will think on this later. For now I have had all the debate I care for. Time to take this unfortunate to the gates of death. Perhaps she can see through the grey veil. Tell us what awaits.’
He took a short pipe from his wallet. The woman—gods respect her spirit—did not flinch. At first.
They broke her, crudely and without mercy. Dispassionately, as though preparing her for disposal. But not as swiftly as she’d hoped. Before the end she begged and pleaded, just as he had predicted she would.
She died, not with an image of
her loved ones in her mind as she’d boasted, but with one thought glowing faintly, the last to wink out.
They never asked my name.
‘So. You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange this, southerner. Have your say and let me get back to my room. I’m supposed to be under guard, you know.’
Graceless. The Falthan priest reminded Duon of Ampater, his second on his first journey through the Azrain Mountains to Lut. Whatever goodness in Ampater had come not from his natural disposition, but from the demands of his bizarre southern religion. Impersonal, forced and unpleasant. The man had perished on the return journey, victim of an avalanche. Duon had not searched the snow too diligently.
‘Then let us be swift,’ said the Bhrudwan lad, earning a nod of agreement from his sister. Graceless as the priest was, these two were his opposite. Vibrant, passionate, unfettered. Prepared to place other people, other issues, before their own desires.
‘Very well.’ Duon drew a deep breath: he had lived with this for months and, to tell the truth, felt a little reluctant to bring it out into the open. ‘It has emerged that the three of us hear a voice in our head. It seems to be the same voice, that of a male magician. Agreed thus far?’
A sullen, almost reluctant grunt from Conal; two vigorous nods from the Bhrudwan siblings.
‘Arathé and I believe we were in Andratan two years and longer ago, in the autumn,’ Duon went on. ‘She is certain she was there for at least a year, which, we think, overlapped with the few weeks I spent in the fortress. So, Conal, when were you there?’
The priest jumped, almost coming off the log he sat on. ‘I didn’t say I was there,’ he said evasively.
‘On your calling as a priest, or however it is expressed in Faltha, can you swear to me you have never set foot in Andratan?’
Conal brushed his long fringe away from his eyes. ‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Very well, then. You were there, I don’t care why. Here is our dilemma. It is likely we were infected during our stay in the Undying Man’s fortress. We don’t know who by or what for. And we can’t even discuss it for fear of being overheard.’
Dark Heart (Husk) Page 34
