A Shout for the Dead

by James Barclay

  Behind the small flotilla, the dead walked along the narrow banks of the river. Gorian felt exhausted by his labours and it was a source of fascination that Kessian seemed almost unaffected by what must have been a supreme effort. It was the boy's stamina keeping the dead walking.

  'You have shown me that you are as talented and powerful as I thought you were when I sensed you in Estorr.'

  Kessian shrugged. His face held a sullen look and his cloak was wrapped about him against the cold in the river tunnel. He had said nothing when Gorian planted the energy map in him and told him to hold hard onto the complex shape that looked like a grand tree-root network bounded by thick ropes. Gorian hadn't been sure it would work and the success had surprised and delighted him.

  'What's wrong? You have advanced the knowledge of the Ascendancy today.'

  ‘I didn't do anything,' said Kessian. 'And you hurt my mother.'

  ‘I —' Gorian quashed the anger that rose so easily inside him. Kessian had been way down the tunnel, well out of sight of Inthen-Gor. 'How could you possibly know that?'

  Kessian frowned and looked up him as if he was stupid. Gorian raised his eyebrows.

  'I've always been able to feel her if she was close enough. And you wouldn't even let me see her or speak to her. You hurt her. And I might have let your army go and that would have been your fault.'

  'But you didn't, did you?'

  'Because you would have been angry with me.' 'Perhaps a little.'

  Kessian looked at him briefly then turned his head back to staring at the rock wall passing by. Gorian shook his head.

  'Why aren't you happy? We won and your mother is barely injured. You know that too, don't you?'

  Kessian deigned to nod slightly.

  'So what do you have to be down-mouthed about? You're a hero. You helped me win. We went in there and took what we wanted. I told you, that's what the strong do. It's destiny.'

  'I didn't have much choice, did I?'

  That whine was back in Kessian's voice, going straight through Gorian and setting his teeth on edge. 'What?'

  'You didn't ask before you used me. You shouldn't have done that.' Kessian was staring at him now, fearful. And well he might be. 'I beg your pardon?' said Gorian quietly.

  'An Ascendant should never do anything against their will. Ossacer said—'

  'Ossacer. Bloody Ossacer!' Gorian bunched his fists. 'When will you realise that you are not there any more? You are here, with me. So you do what I say until you learn what is right for yourself. I'm here trying to rid the world of evil and you're whingeing because a blind man thinks we should all be pacifists. Get out.'

  'What? No.'

  Gorian's face cooled. 'No? Kessian, no one refuses me. You least of all of them. It'll do you good. Give you time to think and put some muscle on those scrawny bones of yours. Go and walk with the dead. I'm keeping them here to teach you anyway. Get out of my sight.'

  Kessian gripped the gunwale. 'No, I won't.'

  'Oh yes, you will.'

  Gorian grabbed his hand and squeezed until Kessian cried out and his grip on the boat loosened. With his other arm he scooped the boy up and dumped him into the river. He screamed as he went under and thrashed when he broke surface. Gorian laughed.

  'Walk on the bottom if you can't swim, boy. You can't drown, you're an Ascendant. Enjoy it. Come back when you have something new to tell me.'

  Gorian faced front and waved his oarsmen to continue.

  Before they'd left the island, Harban was back. Jhered's initial keen disappointment turned quickly to respect. The Karku had brought back a prize. One of the dead. A Gesternan. He was unresisting and though he didn't respond to spoken orders, he walked where he was pointed and prodded and stopped when his way was barred.

  'How far ahead is Gorian?' asked Jhered while the dead man was taken to the fire where Harkov and Mirron would begin to question him.

  'Six miles,' said Harban. 'Or thereabouts. He is on the water. The dead are walking and well behind. That one was easy to pick off. Something that should interest you is this. They didn't hear us and we weren't particularly quiet. And when we took this one, he didn't make a sound and none of those walking right by him made any move. There was no reaction. Just like they didn't know we were there and he was gone.'

  Jhered shrugged. 'They probably didn't. Mirron doesn't think they have individual will or thought. Just walking muscle. And rotting muscle at that.'

  The dead man was not a pretty sight. Much of his armour was gone. There was a huge gouge in his skull which oozed blood and brain and one of his eyes was missing. But all his limbs were intact and he was a powerful man. He stank.

  'I need to get back to my trackers.'

  'Yes. And Harban, don't worry about anyone else. Make sure you don't lose Gorian.'

  'He will not escape us forever.' Harban looked up to the roof of Inthen-Gor. 'Don't linger here. It isn't safe.'

  Jhered smiled and inclined his head. 'We won't. Stay safe, Harban. My arm and heart are yours. We will prevail. Your mountain will not fall.'

  'Go to your dead man,' said Harban. 'We are all short of time.'

  Jhered walked back the short distance to the fire. Harkov was asking questions. Mirron, a sick look on her face, was trying to probe the dead man's energy map. The odour was rank. Wet rot and mould. The Gesternan was standing, slightly slouched. He was breathing, or so it looked, but there was no other movement.

  'So, what have we got?'

  'He isn't much of a talker,' said Harkov.

  'He doesn't have much of a brain, so we can't be surprised. Does he even recognise that you are talking to him?' 'Not a flicker.' 'I see. Mirron?'

  He watched her pull back from the subject and clear her throat.

  'Paul, it's horrible.'

  'I'm sure. Anything interesting?'

  'He is being fed by energies in the ground. But his map is weak and the link to what must be Gorian's overall map is very indistinct. Almost not—' Soundlessly, the man collapsed to the ground, his last breath issuing in a sigh that sounded like relief, '—there at all.'

  'Interesting,' said Jhered. 'Pluck a single leaf from the tree and look what happens to it.'

  'But we have to assume that in this case, the leaf can be reattached to the tree, should the tree return for it,' said Harkov.

  'Or the roots seek it,' said Mirron.

  'Still. It is something we didn't know this morning. Mirron?'

  'The earth energy sustained him while he was close enough to the mass of the construct. But while it can feed him, so to speak, it obviously can't stop the natural process of decay.'

  'Why is that?' asked Jhered.

  'Ossacer would know more about this than me. I think it's because although some functions seem to be restarted, the body isn't self-sustaining and others, crucial ones, don't work or don't need to work for him to do what he did.'

  'Like what?' Harkov was crouched by the body, closing the eyes.

  'No heartbeat.'

  Jhered shook his head. 'I've seen enough. This man will return to the embrace of God. See he is interred then let's get out of here. I know it shouldn't bother me but suddenly I don't like the way Harban and the Karku look at the roof of this place.'

  Chapter Twenty

  859th cycle of God, 30th day of Genasrise

  Arducius put his head in his hands. Only twenty days since Mirron had left the Academy and it was already clear who it was that kept the place tight and focused. He'd been away too long, preaching to those whom he had come to save and who would turn their backs on him the moment he left their homes. Wasted time. Wasted years. Because, for all the passive ability he and Ossacer had brought back to Estorr, there was nothing to show for it but growing dissent.

  He had to hand it to Felice Koroyan. The Chancellor's disinformation machine was well-oiled and as reliable as one of the Conquord's new scorpion bolt-firers. As accurate too. Now she was certain the Ascendancy wasn't about to go back into the field to pick at the corners of
her dominion, she was concentrating all her efforts on Estorr itself.

  If latest rumours were believed, then he, Ossacer and possibly even the Advocate herself, were engaged in human experimentation on innocents snatched from the provinces where they would not be missed. Gorian had developed into a monster of nightmare proportions, marching on the homes of the innocent. Truth hid in certain exaggerations.

  Looking at the class in front of him, it crossed his mind just briefly that human experimentation was too good for them. The Morasian intake. Twenty of them. Rescued, so he thought, from persecution in their home country. And now staring at him as if he was some kind of jailer-cum-torturer. His translator was sitting alongside him looking decidedly uncomfortable while he tried to persuade the rag-bag of ages and intellects among the men and women in front of him that they were both safe and normal.

  Arducius looked down at his red-slashed formal toga to his sandalled feet and took a deep breath. When he looked up the suspicion was hanging in the air like a cobweb just out of reach. He could sense it in all their auras. Flickering tendrils of pale blue and red, eating at the energy in the room, feeding the unease.

  'Is it me or is this really difficult to understand?' he asked of them, hearing the translator, a hawk-faced, middle-aged woman called Norita, speak his words in an awkward clicking dialect.

  He strode to the door and opened it, startling a clerk who was walking by. He gestured out.

  'Here. If any of you feel so inclined, please, take your leave. I'll even pay your passage back home.' He walked back to the centre of the room, leaving the door open. 'But what I really want to do, what all of us here want to do, is help you understand your ability and to make you feel comfortable with what you are.'

  Arducius was greeted with silence though it was a little embarrassed this time. He took it as a gossamer-thin sign of progress.

  'Are your rooms uncomfortable? Do guards keep you under lock and key? Have any of you been stopped from going anywhere in the city or the public areas of the Hill? No. And you won't be. You're here because we want to help you. We think you are safer here than back in your homes. For now at least. But you are not here against your will. I can only work with people who want to learn. So I say again, anyone who wants to leave, do so.' He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. 'I will not stand in your way.'

  Their attention was on the door and some had even relaxed a little. Arducius turned his head and found Hesther in the doorway. Her cheeks were a little red.

  'Perhaps I can help,' she said.

  'Anything,' said Arducius.

  Hesther moved into the room, smiling broadly at the Morasians. She paused when she reached Arducius and dropped her voice.

  'And while you might not stand in their way, I'm not so sure the Advocate won't.'

  'Why would she? War or no war, these people will never become Ascendants.'

  'You know Herine. Always an eye to the far future. It is their grandchildren who interest her.' Hesther cleared her throat and pushed her hands through her greying hair, retying the scarf that kept it out of her face. She smiled at Arducius but the gesture had no comfort in it. 'Anyway, you have a more pressing problem.'

  'I do?' Arducius's heart sank still further.

  'Ossacer is preaching pacifism.'

  'Who to?'

  'Who do you think?'

  Arducius sighed. 'What am I supposed to do? He's right. We aren't training an army here.'

  Hesther's eyes flashed and she grabbed his arm. He was aware that every eye was on them. At least Norita had ceased translating.

  'It doesn't matter if he is right or not. The Advocate is asking questions.' She jabbed a finger back out of the room. 'And those five down there are being trained for combat whether you, I or Ossacer like it or not.'

  'Yes but—'

  'But nothing, Ardu. None of them is a Pain Teller. None of them is going to be a healer of the calibre of Ossacer and he should not be telling them otherwise. All that will happen is that if there is a war, they will appear on the battlefield poorly equipped. That cannot be allowed to happen, for all our sakes. I may be the Mother of the Ascendancy but you are its leader in Herine's eyes. She is losing her patience and what with the pressure the Chancellor is beginning to exert, we cannot afford to make an enemy out of her. You do understand.'

  'Of course I do.'

  'Then prove you're the diplomat we all thought you were way-back-when in Westfallen. Make Ossacer see sense and stop Herine prowling our corridors making the students nervous.'

  Arducius broke eye contact and looked away out of the classroom.

  'I'll do what I can.'

  'Good, in that case we don't have a problem.' Hesther pecked his cheek. 'That was a compliment, Ardu.' 'Oh, right. Thanks.'

  He smoothed down his toga and walked away to speak to his brother. Ossacer wasn't far. His favourite classroom was only three doors away. It was converted from the grand office of the Speaker of the Earth and held some spectacular carvings of Kester Isle and Easthale's Dragon Tooth mountains.

  The students had just left and he was alone in the room. Arducius could sense the energy of their lesson in the air and hear their excited babble echoing from somewhere nearby. They were good, all of them. Very raw at seventeen but with great potential. Arducius prayed daily that the war would never come. He was not confident the Omniscient was listening.

  'Hello, Ardu,' said Ossacer, not looking up.

  He was tracing his hands over the carvings on their display tables. 'A good lesson, Ossie?'

  'They seemed to like it. Particularly Cygalius. He has a huge future, I think.'

  'If he lives to see his eighteenth year,' said Arducius.

  Ossacer ignored him. 'These carvings are sublime. The textures and contours hold such colour. It's like not being blind. Just for a moment.'

  Arducius smiled. 'Then we should track down the sculptor. Get him to do some commissions for us.'

  'I don't think so. Letting go is painful enough as it is.' Ossacer took his hands from the carved stone. 'And then all I am left with are memories and the violent, indistinct world that is energy maps.'

  'What's brought on all this introspection?'

  'Well, it's either that I'm trying to garner sympathy for my unfortunate plight or that I'm hurriedly trying to avoid what you've come to talk to me about.'

  'I see,' said Arducius, feeling awkward. That was another knack Ossacer had.

  'I didn't mean to upset Hesther. I would never want to do that.' 'So that was you, was it?'

  'And it didn't take a genius to know where she would go next.' 'No indeed. She was very red-faced, really upset. So why did you do it?'

  Ossacer moved across the classroom and sat in one of the dozen high-backed chairs that stood on the marble floor.

  'Because no one seems to understand that we are simply being used like animals. Trained for a purpose to be cast on to the wheel of war. And with no thought for the future. So I was telling the emerged that they should be honing their healing and growing skills. Everyone has to help the war effort should it come to that and we are clearly best placed to keep men, women, animals and crops alive, fed and watered. I don't want them to wear blood on their hands like we did. Like we still do.'

  Arducius worried at his lower lip for a moment before taking the seat next to Ossacer.

  'I don't know what to say, Ossie.'

  'You could agree with me.' Ossacer smiled and winked.

  'You know it isn't as simple as that.' Arducius shifted, uncomfortable. 'We can't afford to make an enemy out of the Advocate. Not now, not ever.'

  'So you're prepared to train our Ascendants to murder just to keep her smiling, is that it?'

  'God-embrace-me, how many times have we been through this?'

  'Not enough, clearly.' Ossacer's smile was a distant memory. He'd tensed and Arducius could see the stress in his life map as shimmering, chaotic clashes of colour. 'Because none of you see what's really happening here.'

  'I think you
'll find we all understand exactly what's going on,' said Arducius. 'It's just that one of us refuses to accept it.'

  'Damn right I refuse.' Ossacer's voice pitched up a level.

  'Your trouble is that you think you're untouchable. That you can push Herine as far as you like because you're an Ascendant. All she'll do is stop you teaching and then where will you be?'

  'And your trouble is that you let us get used as weapons when we are born to be the opposite. If we all stood up to her, she would have to back down. And she can't stop me teaching.'

  'No? You'll have to shout loud to be heard from the cells, Ossacer.'

  'She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't dare.'

  'God-take-me-to-my-rest!' Arducius slapped the arms of his chair and stood up, walking away a few paces while his temper calmed. 'How can you be so naive?'

  'I am not naive.'

  'Ossie, you think more deeply than the rest of us put together. Your principles are a guiding light for us all. But you mustn't let them blind you to reality. "Dare"? She's the Advocate, she can do anything she likes. And you have to start understanding the way she thinks.'

  'Like what?'

  Arducius bit his lip to stop himself tearing into Ossacer for his idiot belligerence. 'Like realising that she will do anything to keep the Conquord together. And she will sacrifice anyone who gets in the way of that. She used us in the last war even though she knew it would put her against the Chancellor. And she took us in because she saw our potential in all areas as much as for a reward. If we turn our backs on what she wants now, at her time of greatest need, what do you think she'll do?'

  'We must be prepared to die for our beliefs,' said Ossacer evenly.

  'But not toss our lives away for stubbornness. The Ascendants must be prepared for what will be demanded of them. What will be demanded.'

  'I won't have you gag me, Arducius.'

  'Then you will not teach, nor have contact with our emerged Ascendants.'