“This is the way,” he said with a joviality that would have better suited his fat form. “The ground level is for the uninvited—grave robbers, and worse. You wouldn’t want to be wandering around it by yourself, believe me. Pits and spikes, gas and darts. You name it, you’ll find it. Whole level’s a veritable death-trap.”
“What is this place?” Gaston asked, shuddering at the thought of going down the stairs.
“Once a kind of ship,” Cadman said. “But now a sort of warehouse, preserving that which I hold most dear. It’s been somewhat redundant these past few centuries but does make an excellent—what would you say, Callixus? Barracks? Tomb?”
Callixus didn’t reply, but his spectral body rippled as they began the steep and winding descent.
The bare bones of Cadman’s feet clattered and scraped on the narrow steps, followed by the resounding clang of Gaston’s boots. Callixus made no sound, but drifted like a dark cloud, his fiery eyes glowing brighter with anticipation. The further they descended, the thicker the cobwebs grew, clogged with chips of masonry and the husks of tiny insects. Cadman’s strange lantern illuminated only the three or four feet before him. To the rear, except for the burning coals of Callixus’s eyes, Gaston could make out nothing but impenetrable darkness. And so he followed Cadman deeper and deeper beneath the earth, feeling every bit like a lamb led to the slaughter, but not really having much choice, the way he saw it. He shuddered to think what would become of him if he refused to go on, and besides, his curiosity was aroused. He needed to see this for himself; and he needed some time to think about all that Cadman had told him.
The stairwell wound downwards forever. Gaston’s knees ached and his heart thumped, either from the effort or his mounting fear. Finally, they reached a tunnel of polished silver so shiny their reflections followed them along the walls, ceiling, and floor. They rounded a dogleg and Cadman stopped, shining his glowing cylinder on a door-sized panel. He raised a bony hand to a small rectangular protrusion and slid it across to reveal rows of numbered black studs. He tapped in a sequence and exhaled with relief as the metal door emitted a rush of air and rose.
It opened onto an immense black-metal cavern filled with gently swirling mist that was backlit by a bluish glow. Within the mist, wreathed in its tendrils, Gaston saw the shadowy forms of mounted knights, swords drawn, horses rearing or in mid-turn. He gasped as he took in the sheer size of the chamber and the army it housed. Ain, there had to be at least two hundred men and horses.
Cadman led him up close to a rider and shone his lantern on it. The armor was intact, but brittle and rusted, the once white cloak encrusted with age. The horse beneath the knight was little more than a skeleton held together by rotting ligaments. Cadman reached up and gently pulled the rider towards him so that he could raise its visor. All that remained of the knight’s face was a brownish skull with empty cavities where once there had been eyes. Gaston was startled by a low groan and turned to see that it had come from Callixus.
“Don’t worry, my friend,” Cadman said, “all will be well. With these pieces of the Statue of Eingana I have enough power to raise the entire force. You must believe me when I say I would have done so before, but I lacked the means.”
Callixus said nothing, so Cadman continued.
“It has been all I could do to maintain my fleshly form and stave off death these past few centuries. The residue of magic left in the wake of the Reckoning has greatly diminished. If I could have brought back your knights sooner, I would have.”
Callixus nodded but Gaston thought it was a sinister gesture, full of foreboding.
Cadman took two glowing amber pieces from his pocket. “You will excuse me,” he said to Gaston, “but what I am about to do requires a great deal of concentration. It’s not enough to simply will these things. The necromantic arts go somewhat against the natural bias of Eingana.”
Cadman laid the pieces on the floor, produced a piece of chalk from his tattered garments, and began to draw complex symbols on the flagstones. After some minutes, he stood and walked to the edge of the chamber, where he proceeded to draw a vast triangle about the knights. When he’d finished, he collected the pieces from the center and gestured Gaston and Callixus to the outside of the triangle. Holding the amber pieces aloft, he began to chant in a low, sonorous voice that echoed about the walls to the accompaniment of a chilling sibilance. Reddish light spread through the chamber, emanating from the eye sockets of the mounted skeletons. Slowly, painfully it seemed, joints that can’t have been used for centuries began to creak and move.
Gaston was transfixed, horribly fascinated by the jerky animation, the cracking of dry bones, the squeaking links of ancient armor. A rumbling sound started, and the entire chamber began to shake. The noise rose in pitch and volume, whining and growling, the floor pitching, walls shuddering. Within a matter of moments, the room stilled and the noise whirred softly into silence.
Cadman walked to the center of the milling skeletal horses, the pieces of amber like molten lava in his hands. “Welcome back,” he said, “my knights of the Lost.”
The riders turned their helmeted heads towards Callixus, who merely nodded.
Cadman suddenly bent double and thrust the amber pieces into the tatters of his robe. He looked frantically from side to side, as if he expected to be struck at any moment. Slowly, vertebra by vertebra, he straightened up and sidled closer to Callixus, moving together with him through the ranks of the knights until he stood before the wall opposite the stairwell. He ran his hand over the surface and located a concealed panel. Thrusting it inwards and twisting, he stood back as a crack appeared in the center of the wall and parted with a hiss to reveal a ramp leading down to the dark woodland beyond. Gaston followed Cadman outside.
The burial mound had gone, replaced by an enormous black dome that jutted from the ground, its surface flecked with sparkling green, great piles of freshly dislodged earth around its base. He was about to ask for an explanation when a terrific clatter came from back within the dome. Cadman pulled him to one side, claw-like fingers digging into Gaston’s flesh. Callixus emerged and drifted down the ramp, a deafening wall of sound following as the knights of the Lost returned to the world of the living.
REJUVENATION
Ipsissimus Theodore eased himself onto a stool, throat burning with bile, lungs pained from the prolonged coughing fit. Spots of bright crimson stained his white vestments, and the stench of decay filled his nostrils. He knew he didn’t have long until the consumption killed him and yet there were weeks to go until the fleet reached Sahul. He wished he could just give in, let the illness take him, send him on his way to a new and enduring life, but the timing was wrong. He needed to reach Sahul, although he was not quite sure why. Eingana wanted him there, he assumed. Whatever that meant.
Of course, there were other possibilities—he’d considered them all. One of the advantages of being at sea—probably the only advantage—was that he had some respite from the endless meetings, services, visits, blessings; the infighting. Ain only knew what headway Exemptus Silvanus and his supporters were making in Theodore’s absence. But at least he was out of it for now, free to spend as much time as he needed in prayer and discernment. Eingana: a snake goddess worshipped by the Dreamers. Theodore ran his thumb over the amber eye of his pectoral Monas. An angel or a demon in the mythology of the Templum. Some said she was one of the children of Nous, but Liber scholars for once agreed that this was a later interpolation. Either she was from Ain or the Demiurgos. How could you tell? How could you know what action to take? What was it Luminary Narcus used to say about such things? If they are from Ain, ignore them: Ain has other ways and means of seeing his will done. If they are from the Demiurgos, ignore them: they are deceptions designed to trap the soul. And if they should come from the self, still ignore them: they are either wishful thinking or unacknowledged manipulations, manifestations of the human inclination to control, to be master of all things. The human desire to be Ain.
Theodore’s chest tightened and he bent double, coughing into his fist. He retched, nausea rising in a relentless press until finally the blockage shifted and he was left staring at a viscous clot of blood covering his hand.
The desire to be Ain. Wasn’t that everybody’s dream, really, when you broke it down—all the prayers, meditations, the wars, the … political maneuvering at the heart of the Templum? Was it such a bad thing, to be in absolute control of one’s environment? In control of one’s own life, free from fear, free from decay … free from suffering?
Even now he could feel the weight of the amber eye staring from the head of the Monas. It had grown heavier the further they sailed from Aeterna, the nearer they came to Sahul. It was not an entirely uncomfortable heaviness. It was rather as if it were trying to draw attention to itself. As he pondered the Monas’s single eye, Theodore thought he saw a spark within. He looked closer and the amber began to glow.
“What is it? What are you trying to tell me?”
The eye brightened, as if it housed a miniature sun. The golden Monas encasing it started to vibrate.
“Power,” Theodore whispered. He had felt power from the Monas before, but this time it seemed like it was goading him—or encouraging him.
Theodore frowned and placed his right hand over the Monas. Huntsman had warned him about this; warned him not to use the eye. Someone, or something, might be drawn to its power, he used to say, but then at their last meeting he’d been more direct: Sektis Gandaw, the infamous Technocrat who’d had an iron grip over most of the world back before the Reckoning. Probably been as close to becoming Ain as anyone had got either before or since. Closer even than Blightey. Was it Sektis Gandaw who’d been invading his dreams, or was it some as yet unrevealed horror? The Demiurgos, perhaps? Theodore allowed himself a wry smile at that. Or maybe it was just his own mind, deluded by sickness, seeking a heroic struggle for what was, to all intents and purposes, entirely mundane. There was nothing particularly heroic about rotting away from the inside, in spite of what the Paters would have you believe.
The eye pulsed rapidly, its light blinding. Theodore shut his eyes, feeling sharp stabs of heat in his brain. Stabs that became a gentle warmth melting away all doubt and indecision, driving away confusion and granting him perfect clarity. The eye wanted him to live—needed him to live—he knew that now. It was offering to cure him, to give him the strength to go on, to reach Sahul and whatever Ain had in mind for him. And it was Ain, he understood on some deeper level. He was sure of it. Glad of it, too. Relieved he could be the instrument of his lord and not have to rely on his own imperfect judgment.
Theodore made a fist around the Monas, sighed, and permitted the healing. The relief was sublime. He hadn’t appreciated just how much his body had suffered. Tears dampened his face, and he inhaled a great rush of air with lungs that no longer burned. Salty air. Sea air. Even his limbs felt looser, free of rheumatic pain and tension. He rose from the stool, without the usual accompanying moment of dizziness, and began to search for a mirror. He became so frantic to see what had happened to him that he called out for help.
“Ipsissimus?” Exemptus Cane burst into the cabin, bleary-eyed and disheveled, looking like he’d just risen from the grave. It was odd seeing him in a stripy nightshirt that clung to his rolls of fat. “What is it? Nous almighty!” Cane exclaimed, and then blanched as Theodore gave him a withering look.
“A mirror! Fetch me a mirror!”
“A mirror? But…”
Theodore shoved him out into the corridor. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what a mirror is. I’ve been in your cabin, Exemptus. The place is full of them.”
Cane hurried next door to his own quarters and returned with a silver-framed hand mirror. Snatching it from him, Theodore looked and gasped. Gone was the weazened face, deathly with its ashen pallor, to be replaced with a visage of vibrant youth. Only his eyes held a hint that he was older, wiser than his rejuvenated body might suggest.
“Forgive me, Ipsissimus,” Cane said, “but what has happened to you?”
“Not now, Exemptus, not now.” Theodore waved him away and shut his eyes with relief when the door closed.
He needed time to accept what had happened before he could attempt an explanation for the benefit of others. He sat once more upon the stool and looked at the now dull eye of the Monas. He remained there, lost in thought for a while until he was startled by a shrill, unearthly shriek that seemed to come from beyond the stars.
Theodore shuddered and wondered whether he had just made a mistake, the newfound certainty falling away like snow melting from a rooftop. Time will tell, he thought as he left the cabin for fresh air and the open sea.
CONFESSION
The knights had been dead, brittle with decay, rotted down to the bone from centuries locked in their unearthly tomb, and yet Cadman had raised them to some sort of new life. They had moved—slowly and jerkily at first, but then with greater ease. Ain, they’d even ridden from the mound, or ship, or whatever it was. All under Cadman’s power, but Gaston couldn’t think of them as resurrected, not in the Nousian sense; their bodies lacked the perfection and luminosity promised by the Paters. Was this the immortality Cadman offered, a grisly parody of life, the animation of corpses directed by his will? Could the knights even think for themselves? Did they know who they were anymore? Did they remember their loved ones, long-since gone back to the ground? Callixus seemed sentient enough, and yet there was nothing much human about him. And Cadman himself, stripped of his illusion, was hardly more than a skeleton.
Gaston crossed his arms over his chest, shivering at the unnatural coldness that seemed to radiate from within. He felt like he was holding together a ripped and sodden paper sack in a desperate attempt to stop the last sorry scraps of faith from leaking out.
Unable to sleep, he wrapped his white cloak about his shoulders, fastened his sword belt, and left the spartan confines of the barracks. The other buildings were in darkness as he emerged, the rest of the knights sleeping, apart from the sentries around the perimeter wall. He passed the infirmary on his way to the stables and heard the coughing and groaning of those who’d been infected by the plague. He still couldn’t understand why they’d grown sick whilst the priests were immune? Did they not also serve Ain? Maybe Shader had been right all along: maybe Ain was a god of peace who would not tolerate violence in his name. If that were the case, Gaston thought, allowing himself to indulge the anger that he’d been suppressing since Shader had buggered off to Aeterna, why had Shader passed on his own problems to the White Order? It seemed he understood the contradiction at the heart of his own vocation, but was powerless to do anything about it. That made him a victim, as far as Gaston was concerned, unworthy of teaching others.
If Gaston had learnt anything these past few days, it was that Shader had betrayed him—betrayed them all. With the right mentor, Gaston could have become a “Friend of Ain”, like his father had been. He could handle the devotions and the mortifications, and without Shader’s influence he could have avoided the conflict the dual roles of Nousian and knight had brought. It was starting to look like Dad’s advice had been right after all. If Gaston had listened to him and not Shader, things might have turned out differently.
He stopped himself there, before he followed the train of thought to its conclusion. His faith might be dwindling, but he still had his honor, and that told him it was unfair to blame Shader for the attack on the imperial troops; and not just them either. As much as he wanted to shed the guilt of what he’d done to Rhiannon, he couldn’t lay it on Shader. The man might have been a charlatan, but Gaston wouldn’t make him a scapegoat. If there was one thing Bovis Rayn had taught his son, it was that he was responsible for his own actions, no excuses. That, and the fact that no sin is beyond Ain’s forgiveness. Perhaps if Dad had still been alive … if that shogging Sicarii hadn’t put him in the ground…
Reaching the stables, he saddled the white mare and rode for the main gate of the enclosure. Da
rik Yonas, on sentry duty, snapped to attention.
“Master Rayn?”
Gaston wanted to sneer at the title, but Darik was a good lad and deserved better. Wasn’t his fault if Gaston didn’t deserve his respect. “Can’t sleep, Darik. I’m gonna ride around the city for a while.”
“I wouldn’t advise it, sir.” Darik peered beyond the gate. “I hear things out there in the dark.”
Gaston could see nothing; the dark was as absolute and impenetrable as anything he might expect to find in the Void.
“If there’s anything lurking out there—” He patted the pommel of his sword. “—then it’s in for a surprise. Open the gate.”
He rode out into the pitch blackness of Sarum, the clopping of the mare’s hooves a challenge to the silent streets. His eyes were drawn to the waning moon hanging like a fragment of bone amidst clusters of glistening stars—pinpricks of silvery light from Araboth that illuminated his way along road after deserted road. Once or twice he stopped the horse, convinced something was following him. He couldn’t be sure if he’d heard the padding of feet or just the echo of his own progress. He rode aimlessly, breathing in the night air, scarcely a thought in his head. Gradually, though, he began to recognize buildings and street names. Maybe it was just unconscious, or maybe the horse was merely retracing her steps, but Gaston suspected the hand of Ain was guiding him as he made his way inexorably towards the Templum of the Knot.
Dismounting at the entrance to the Domus Tyalae, he tethered the horse to a tree and continued on foot until he reached the templum. Scouting the exterior, he came upon the residential block, but there was no light from within. He paused for a moment to consider whether to awaken the priests, but decided to come back in the morning. As he turned to leave, a figure emerged from the shadows.
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