by A J Dalton
‘As for you, Jacob, you talk of everything the Empire has given you without thinking of what it has taken from you. You have no freedom to think or believe anything except that which the Empire prescribes. You have no freedom to express your thoughts or be yourself. They have taken your very life and soul, man. You are a shadow of who you should have been. Even your own daughter struggles to know you. You have let the Empire take her father from her! You have let the Empire make an orphan of her, despite all your efforts. Is that what you want for Hella? And would you then allow them to take her and break her as they did you? Do you want to give your daughter into the hands of those cruel masters, people for whom you have a secret contempt? Well, do you?’
‘No!’ the trader moaned. ‘Do not let them take her from me! She is all I have!’
‘Yet you will lose her, and you will lose each other, if you do not let Jillan heal you.’
‘Please, Father!’ Hella whispered through her tears.
Shaking violently, Jacob looked into his daughter’s eyes and held out his arms to Jillan.
Hella and Jacob had gone and Jillan and Samnir were just making up their beds when there was a quiet knock at the door.
‘Who’s there?’ Samnir asked as he went near.
‘Samnir, it is your mistress at last. You will open the door to me.’
Samnir stared at the door, his mouth hanging open, and his hand rose to obey. Sensing that all was not right, Jillan called, ‘Samnir, wait! Who is it?’
The soldier pulled the bolt back and let in the late-night visitor. The newcomer was slender, dressed in a long black cape and wearing a grotesque wooden mask. The character of the face was beautiful and knowing on the left side, but ugly and leering on the other. Even so, it was one continuous visage and quite unnerving. At one moment the ugliness would seem honest and the beauty deceiving; the next the ugliness threatened pain and the beauty promised mercy. It was apparently a depiction of Miserath, but why would the pagan god come wearing a mask of himself? The mask was removed and a totally new face was revealed.
‘Holy one, it has been so long,’ Samnir whimpered and performed a deep bow.
‘Rise, most cherished Samnir. You have aged but still cut a fine figure, eh?’ The stranger’s attention moved straight to Jillan. ‘And this is the boy about whom there’s been such a fuss. Good evening, my young fellow. I am Saint Izat and I have come to take you away from all this noise and hullabaloo. This region is positively putrid, no? I have no idea how anyone ever manages to keep their shoes clean. A chair if you please, darling Samnir. Sweet man.’
The Saint perched herself on the edge of the seat provided and looked Jillan up and down. ‘A bit rough around the edges, but I’m sure you’ll come up a treat after a scented bath or two.’
Jillan glared at the Saint, not liking her thin eyebrows and disconcertingly full lips. There was barely a line on the face of the Saviours’ representative. This creature was clearly skilled at keeping expression from its face, to prevent others from reading its thoughts. What ambitions and desires did this Saint have that were so terrible they had to be hidden? What ambitions and desires did any Saint have, come to that? Nothing too savoury, that was for sure.
‘Come to offer me Salvation, have you?’ Jillan asked neutrally. ‘Or to Draw me to the Saviours? Come to threaten me with damnation if I resist?’
Saint Izat smiled gently. ‘I would be cynical too, if I had been treated as you have, Jillan. Saint Azual can be quite a zealot and a brute, I know. He misdirects his passion, you see. Things are different in the western region, my region, however. It is a garden of love and understanding. There is no killing and oppression there. Come with me! Bring your friends and you can live the life you’ve always wanted, you’ll see! Leave this squalor behind.’
‘But your region is still part of the Empire, is it not? The mechanisms of control in your region might be different to this region’s – you may use loving arms rather than force of arms – but they are mechanisms all the same. In your region I would not be free to lead my own life the way I want. You would want to Draw all my magic from me, wouldn’t you, just like Saint Azual? You may not like this squalor, but it is my squalor, where none may own, control or Draw me. Samnir, please show the holy one out.’
Saint Izat smiled again and tapped her thigh in amusement. ‘Samnir is mine to command, my precocious and provocative young man. But I like you, so must now insist that you come—’
A heavy hand landed on the Saint’s shoulder.
‘Samnir! What is the meaning of this? How dare you lay one of your grubby hands on my holy person without my gracious permission!’ the Saint squawked in outrage.
The fingers tightened.
‘Samnir! Does your lust so fire you—’
A blade of sun-metal was pressed against the Saint’s pretty throat, silencing her. ‘Jillan has invited you to leave, holy one. I suggest you do so, before I fully recall the things you did when I was young to bind me to you. Love you called it? Why then do I only feel dirty and used? Hesitate one more second and it will be your last, holy one.’
Saint Izat came straight to her feet and Samnir walked her to the door and pushed her out. The soldier quickly slammed the door closed and double-bolted it. He put his back against it and slid down to the floor, his face pasty-white.
Through the wood at his ear came a gentle voice. ‘You will be mine again, sweet Samnir, and you will beg for my love before I am through with you.’
Samnir stumbled back to the chair and stared and stared at the door.
Jillan poured the last of the wine into a beaker and pressed it into his friend’s hand. ‘Drink this. I thought you were going to kill her.’
‘I wish I had,’ Samnir said through rattling teeth. ‘But it took everything I had just to get the blade up to her neck and hold it steady.’
In the dark Praxis finished loading the wagon with every bottle of wine and liquor he had in his personal cellar and drove it through Godsend to the northern gates. He called the pagan guards down to him and handed a bottle of the strongest liquor to each of them.
‘From Chief Braggar, so that you may toast tomorrow evening’s victory and help keep out the cold tonight. The Chief said he would take it as a personal insult if you did not finish your bottles within the hour, and also a blasphemy against the gods.’
The men laughed. They assured him they were of good faith.
‘And an extra bottle for he who best proves his faith by finishing first!’
They cheered the Minister as he drove the remaining hundred or so bottles over to the inn, not far from the gates.
Jillan thought he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep that night but entered his dreams as soon as he closed his eyes. He was in the middle of a ruined landscape once more, the blackened ground cracked, with lava flowing through caves below. He walked across the smoking crust of the earth, the roots of any trees long since burned away and their bulks toppled atop one another to make a charred pyre of the forest that had once stood here. The sky was a pall of soot and ash and the sulphurous air hurt his lungs. As he came over a slight rise, he found he walked upon the crumbling and powdery bones of the dead.
Again a large green hill rose high above him, a sea of humanity washing up its slopes only to be driven back by a waiting line of cruel-eyed heavily armed Heroes. The green of the lower slopes had long since been replaced by the red and brown of lost lives. Still people fought vainly against each other to be the first to reach the killing spears of sun-metal.
On the crown of the hill was a throne of skulls where the mutilated and mad Saint sightlessly surveyed his domain. He laughed as if watching a mummers’ play. A woman in rags crossed the path of a stocky man, who twisted her head sharply round to break her neck. In her final instant of life her eyes fell on Jillan, and the Saint saw him.
The grizzly shape of Azual stood and pointed down at the boy. ‘There is the one who has driven you to your deaths. See there! He stands behind you with the t
hreat of his magic and you flee towards the verdant sanctuary of my hill. See how he has ruined the landscape all around so that you may have no haven elsewhere. See how he seeks to have you overwhelm this hill, your one place of safety. Turn on him! Do not allow him to force death upon you. Have your revenge! And the one who brings me his head will have a place at my side here in this restful garden.’
The wild-eyed mob turned as one to stare hungrily at Jillan. They began to race towards him. In the tumult the slow were trodden underfoot and smeared across the ground. Unfortunates were pushed into fissures, to fall screaming into the steaming lava. Children and babes-in-arms were dropped in the chaos, speared upon fire-hardened branches and broken on rocks.
‘No! Stay back!’ Jillan pleaded and spun away. He slipped and floundered on the treacherous remains of what had once lived here. ‘Please!’ He ran for his life, nowhere to go. He vaulted a tree trunk and leapt a yawning gulf with only just enough momentum to stop himself toppling into the fiery depths. An old man little more than an animated skeleton hurled himself across the gap after Jillan, fell short, caught the crumbling lip of the edge and frantically tried to haul himself up. ‘Forgive me!’ Jillan sobbed, and continued to run as the man fell into the molten rock below.
They came pouring around the small chasm. Fear and adrenalin gave him a new burst of speed and he outdistanced them by a handful of yards, but he soon began to flag while the mad horde did not slacken for a moment. Hands grabbed and tore at his clothing. They dragged him to the ground and clawed at his head, fighting to get a hold so that they could rip it from his shoulders. He bit hard on fingers, down to the bone, but the insane owners were oblivious. They gouged at his eyes, stuck sharp fingernails into his ears to burst his eardrums, ripped open his nostrils and yanked out handfuls of his hair.
His head came up, and he all but vomited his entire self out through his mouth. He screamed and screamed.
Samnir had him by the shoulders and was shaking him hard. A stinging slap to the cheek. ‘I’m here, Jillan.’
‘He’s here!’ Jillan cried in a cold sweat.
There were scratches at the front door and it shook as hands tried to pull it open. Kicking feet and barging shoulders rattled it in its frame. They called and howled bestially for his head. It was no dream. The People had come for him.
‘The Saint’s here!’
‘How?’ Samnir demanded frantically, pulling his sword free and facing the door. ‘It shouldn’t be for another day at least. We’re not ready. We’ll be slaughtered!’
Dawn was threatening when the last of the stinking pagans in the inn slumped into drunken unconsciousness. He snored as loudly as the others, a fly lazily circling his open mouth.
Minister Praxis shrugged off the arm the sot next to him had affectionately put round his shoulders and pushed the warrior’s face away. Praxis climbed over the table, wove his way between the slumbering bodies and empty bottles and gained the door.
‘At last! These animals will soon be skewered and set to roast over the greedy flames of their own corruption. Pigs!’ he sneered in disgust.
He stepped out into the false dawn and all but ran for the gates. In his excitement he did not notice the shadow slip out of the inn after him.
The Minister could not contain himself. ‘Master, I come to do your bidding! Glory be this moment, for the rising sun heralds the start of a new age of civilisation, a world where only the worthy will exist, a land where godly Saviours, their holy Saints and the People intermingle and become one. The day of eternal communion is upon us. Praise be!’
‘Who goesh there?’ slurred a boss-eyed warrior at the top of the steps next to the gates. ‘Oh, it’sh you, lowla-la-lander.’
The Minister ignored him and went to lift one end of the bar across the gates. ‘Master, your holy city awaits you!’
Good, Saint Praxis. We are ready. Quickly, for I am famished and would break my fast with pagan blood and bones! Quickly!
‘Here! What are you about there, lowla-la-lander? Wanna hand?’ hiccuped the warrior as he swayed down the first few steps and then, losing control, took the rest at breakneck speed. He bounced like a clownish acrobat at the bottom and shouted, ‘Ta-da!’ There were groans of protest from those on the ramparts above.
‘Going for a walk then, lowla-la-lander? Don’t think you sh-should really, not without an eshcort or something. Let me rouse shome of the others.’
Quickly!
The Minister bared his teeth, incapable of smiling at the vile semi-naked devil. He stepped in close to the Chaos creature, extracted a needle-like blade from within the sleeve of his ministerial longcoat and stabbed the weapon into the side of the pagan’s neck. The Minister tried to saw the blade round to the front to prevent any scream, but the lack of a serrated edge meant he just waggled the blade in the wound. Blood sprayed into the Minister’s eyes and mouth, and then over the hand holding the knife, making his hand slip.
Torpeth scampered towards the Minister, thinking to stop his betrayal before it could go any further, but at that moment Praxis turned his face away from his squirting gurgling victim and saw the holy man coming.
‘You’re too late!’ cackled the Minister through his red teeth, as he abandoned the warrior and heaved up the other end of the crossbar. ‘Now, master! Deliver us from evil!’ There was a crash against the outside of the gates and they began to shudder open.
‘Awake! Awake!’ Torpeth screamed to the ramparts and the sky. ‘Treachery! Awake to our nightmares made flesh! Awake, my people, or never wake again! Payment is due! Here is the moment of our true testing! The others are here with blade and flame! Oh where are the gods? Awake!’
Hands wringing and eyes rolling wildly, Torpeth ran for the inn as the flames of the sun began to devour the earth, and as Azual returned at last to Godsend.
Samnir pushed Jillan and his bow through the small window in the room where Jillan’s parents had once slept, and then tried to squeeze out after him. The soldier got one arm and his head through, so knew he should be able to make it. He pushed off the ground with his feet, only to find himself caught in midair in the narrow aperture. He was hanging half in and half out, without sufficient purchase to drag himself through. He kicked with his legs as if swimming, tried to wriggle with his torso and pulled at the bricks outside with his one free hand.
Jillan took hold of Samnir’s arm to haul him out.
Samnir slapped him away. ‘Behind you!’
Out of the grey light came a ghoulish figure, its eyes fully black voids. ‘Come to me, boy,’ it snarled at Jillan in a many-layered voice as if there was more than one entity within it.
‘Use the sword!’ Samnir grimaced as he twisted his arm inside the house to push the blade of sun-metal past his body and head, singeing his hair as he did so.
Other ghouls came out of the grey, their movements jerky, as if they were pulled by invisible strings and another’s will. The first ghoul lurched towards Jillan, who ducked, but the possessed Godsender fell on top of him, teeth gnashing at his cheek. Jillan craned his neck back and pushed against the man’s chest with one hand, for his other was pinned beneath him.
‘Hold on, lad!’ Samnir shouted as he heaved himself forward a few more inches. There was a crash behind him in the house as the front door finally gave way.
Jillan realised Samnir wasn’t going to get to him in time and flung out his arm to grope for the sword, his fingers curling around the hilt. The Godsender’s teeth bit into his cheek and he screamed. He stabbed with the sword, its point going through the monster’s temple and coming out the other side. The man’s eyes cleared, returning to their normal brown; he blinked once and then fell dead on top of Jillan.
Jillan rolled the deadweight off him, pulled the sword free and immediately swung it through the neck of a slobbering maid who raked at him with her fingernails. The blade sheered effortlessly through flesh and bone and her head tumbled to the ground. It came to rest and stared up at him accusingly.
�
��I don’t want to kill you!’ Jillan cried in distress at a familiar man in the garb of a carpenter who lumbered towards him. ‘Stay back!’
The carpenter cocked his head and spoke in the voice of the Saint. ‘Then stop fighting me, boy. You have caused all this. How many must die before you submit to the authority of your elders and betters? They only have the best interests of you and the People at heart. You cannot fight an entire Empire, Jillan. Stop this before it is too late. Even now the pagans are being slaughtered because of what you started. Even now innocents are caught up and lost in the ensuing chaos. You have instigated a genocide, boy. They will all die!’
Jillan lowered the sword. ‘If I stop fighting, you must stop the killing.’
‘No!’ Samnir shouted and kicked back against something hard, at last propelling himself far enough for his centre of gravity to drag him out and towards the ground.
He landed inelegantly, but rose quickly and punched the carpenter so hard in the face that the man spun all the way round. ‘Give me that!’ Samnir demanded, swapping the sun-metal blade in Jillan’s hand for a normal long knife. He grabbed Jillan by the scruff of the neck and all but lifted him off his feet as he hauled him down the alley at the side of the house. There were howls behind them as the People of the Saint gave chase.
