by Steven Poore
Baum shifted. “You remember a little of the tales of Lyriss, then?”
The priest met his gaze, rheumy eyes narrowing. “Did I say that?”
“I believe you did, Dorias.”
“Ah.” Dorias shivered. “I know you. I know your face. Your voice.”
The room grew even more claustrophobic. Cassia glanced from one man to the other, muscles tensed for a swift exit. Baum still smiled, but the priest’s expression was haunted.
“I admit I am surprised to see you still alive,” Baum said at last. “I always thought your wild schemes were doomed to failure.”
“Phah. You are not infallible,” Dorias told him. “They sustain me. They will not be happy to know you’ve come here. I smell Pyraete upon you.”
Baum shrugged. “So . . . don’t tell them. They don’t pay attention to everything that happens. You call them gods? They aren’t immortals, you know.”
“What is man to a mayfly?” the priest snapped.
Cassia could not follow the conversation, but she did not dare interrupt. “I should throw you out,” the old priest muttered.
“We are not here to cause trouble,” Baum insisted. “We are simply passing through this land.”
“The March would have been much quicker. Trouble must be on your heels.”
“All I seek is news,” Baum said. “I have spent the last few years in the far North, and I would like to know the lie of the land before I walk upon it.”
“You’ve come to the wrong place,” Dorias said, but the tone of his voice suggested otherwise. “I hear little and less from the townsfolk these days. Only Gelmik ever says more than ten words to me. The legions patrol the March and the eastern woods, and they force the Lyrissans to keep to the valleys. They could crush the town once and for all if they wished – half a legion would do the job well enough – but their commander is a superstitious old fool who still believes in dragons and will not commit his men to the valleys. And there is nothing the Empire could gain by razing Lyriss to the ground for a second time.”
“Nevertheless.”
The priest sighed. “There are always rumours. Men look North and shiver. I would advise against the March. Even the richest merchants find themselves delayed and questioned on the roads toward Hellea.”
“Old fears run deep,” Baum muttered. “The Empire has always feared the North. And what do you hear of the name Malessar?”
The priest scratched his head. “Malessar . . . an ill-omened name. Like the warlock from the old tales . . . a certain way to damn a child.”
Cassia was surprised. She had not believed anyone would still use that name. Surely the weight of history would choke any boy given that burden.
“They know him.” Dorias said eventually. “They see him. They dream of him.”
Baum leaned forward. “Where?”
The priest’s thin lips twisted in a wry smile. “A fair question. And one I cannot answer.”
Baum’s expression was fierce and intent. Cassia held her breath, remembering the bolts of pure magic that burned through Vescar’s soldiers. Baum had worn the same expression then. She wondered if she might be able to slip away before he lost his patience with the prevaricating priest.
“Cannot, or will not?”
Dorias spat into the hearth once more. “I’m an old man. I’ve forgotten far more than I’ll ever know. But you should know that. He was in Hellea. And Galliarca. But whether that was last year, five years ago, or ten, or even more than that, I do not know. Perhaps he is dead.”
“Perhaps not,” Baum countered.
“Ah well, if he’s like you, if he’s a warlock . . .” the priest’s words drifted into silence. He shook his head. “Maybe it’s for the best that I am old.”
Cassia could not endure much more of this. It all frightened her; the priest, the town, the mutilated statues . . . even spending another night in the ruins of one of those abandoned forts would be preferable to staying in Lyriss any longer. She looked towards Baum. “Sir?”
Baum frowned, and returned his attention to the priest. “We will not take up much more of your time,” he said.
“If supplying you leaves me in peace, then you can take what you want,” Dorias grunted. It seemed he was no longer in any mood to ramble, hunched forward defensively, scowling into the fireplace. He dug into his robe and fetched out a dull and pitted iron key, tossing it to Cassia. “Leave the door unlocked.”
She scrambled out of the room gratefully, not caring that her hand landed on something soft beneath the rushes as she pushed herself up.
The conversation continued behind her, words now terse and spare.
“I had hoped you were long dead.”
Baum snorted. “Charitable thoughts for a priest.”
“My gods are not known for their charity. And neither is yours. What do you really want?”
“The warlock,” Baum replied. “His life, and nothing more.”
Cassia heard Dorias hawk phlegm. “And the boy? He isn’t yours. I can see that much. Leave him here. I’ll look after him while you go south. I could use the help. Gelmik—”
“The boy stays with me,” Baum said firmly.
“Then it will all end in tears,” Dorias said. “They have spoken.”
Baum laughed. “Your gods? Now, the truth, Dorias. They know where he is. I must know too.” His voice boomed through the hall, making Cassia jump and almost drop the heavy key. “Boy! Hurry with those stores!”
She hastened to do his bidding, chagrined at having been caught eavesdropping. It isn’t my fault the sound carries so easily in here . . . She wrestled with the lock, her fingers slipping on cold metal, and tried to block out the sounds from the priest’s room.
q
They left Lyriss before the sun was halfway to the horizon. Meredith’s presence had kept the townsfolk at bay, and Cassia felt waves of hostility flow across the square towards her as she stowed the supplies and hoisted herself into the saddle. Potatoes, leeks, and a greying ham were all the priest could spare from his meagre stores.
Two women sat on a step at the far end of the street. Gaunt and hard-faced, the sharp lines of their bodies clear under their shifts, they watched the party pass by, not even bothering to call their wares to Meredith or Baum. Their silence unnerved Cassia yet further, and she pushed her mount into a bone-shaking canter to escape their unfriendly, calculating stares.
Now they travelled west, into the sunset and directly away from the March. The poor fields petered out into the broken ground that dominated much of the Lyrissan valley, the road once again little more than a rough track. They might almost still be in Gethista, Cassia thought. There was no appreciable difference between the two areas. She kept the brisk pace until, as the path began to climb out of the lowest parts of the valley, Meredith and Baum caught up with her at last.
“I would guess from your demeanour that you did not enjoy your brief visit to Lyriss,” Meredith said. There was the hint of a smile around the corners of his mouth.
“The priest . . . his temple was not right.” Cassia struggled to find the correct words. “I felt like something was watching me.”
“Perhaps it was his god,” Meredith suggested. Cassia looked up sharply at him, but that faint smile had not widened.
“Are you mocking me, sir?”
Meredith raised one hand in a calming gesture. “I meant no offence, girl.”
Baum spat into the grass and looked back over his shoulder, something Cassia herself had decided she would not do until they had left Lyriss far behind them. “There were no gods in that temple,” he said firmly. “There never were.”
“But why else would the priest be there?” Cassia wondered aloud. “He said they talked to him.”
“Dorias has been there for half a century,” Baum said. “I hardly think his sanity can be counted upon now.”
Another thought struck her and she watched Baum’s face carefully as she spoke. “He said he knew you, sir. Was he wrong in that?”<
br />
Baum hesitated, looking away for a moment, but when he turned back to her his expression had not changed. “No, he was not.”
“Was he a soldier? Like Attis?”
Now Baum smiled, as though remembering the priest as a younger man. “A soldier, yes, but not like Half-Captain Attis. Dorias was . . . a delicate soul. He found soldiering too hard for his sensibilities at first. The armour was too heavy, the pikearms too long, his scabbard ever tangled itself with his legs; and he would always march out of time.” He wagged a finger at Cassia to forestall her next question. “But nevertheless, he was there, in that Berdellan fort when we bested Gyre Carnus. It shaped him. He earned his share of the gold.”
Cassia found that hard to believe, recalling the hunched, bony figure living in the midst of his own filth. “But why would he come here after that?”
“Dorias used to say he heard the gods calling him. I never believed him. I know what they sound like, I know the look of a man’s face when the gods say his name. And I was here when Lyriss first fell. I know that no god looks down upon this damned valley. But what Dorias heard was enough to cause him to lay down his arms and come to Lyriss to rebuild that temple. A fool’s project.”
She fought the urge to look back at the dilapidated town. Perhaps there really are dragons under the hills. Perhaps they found themselves lonely after so many centuries, with only the cracked bones of the past for company . . . Truth or not, it was a haunting image. One that would give new life to the old stories of Lyriss. And so I have a tale I can call my own. A tale that will distinguish me from every other storyteller in Hellea. It was more, far more, than her father had ever given her.
Her mind surged southward, to the Empire’s capital. A vast city of grand squares and heaving marketplaces, where women wove gold lace through their hair and noble men declaimed from platforms on every street corner. Where even the rudest servant might have money and a room of her own. Where storytellers might become truly famous and be known by name to the Emperor himself.
Or so Hetch had told her, once. She glanced back at Lyriss as they crested a rise that would at last hide the town from view. I hope Hellea does not look like that.
Baum seemed in a fair mood so she ventured another question, angling for more fuel for her tales. “Will we find Malessar in Hellea, sir?”
“Yes, I believe so.” Baum sounded pleased. “The Betrayer has always tethered himself to Hellea. No matter how far he travels, his leash always pulls him back to these lands.”
His scorn for the warlock’s motives was clear. He must have trailed Malessar back and forth across the continent for centuries, biding his time and perfecting his plan.
“Why did you not confront him earlier?”
He scratched his beard and stared at her, his brow raised quizzically. “You are full of questions today, girl. Would you know my whole scheme?”
She almost said yes, but bit down on her reply, apologising instead for her forwardness. “My father always told me I should keep my nose out of the business of others, sir.”
Baum shrugged. “No matter. It was a fair question. I may be the sword of Pyraete’s vengeance, but even a sword must first be forged and hammered, folded dozens of times, tempered, and then sharpened so it may be used. I was a man, you see, nothing more than that, until I was chosen. I had no sorcerous skills, no knowledge of alchemy; I would never have been able to stand against Malessar as I was.”
He lifted one hand from his reins and held his thumb and forefinger apart. A blue nimbus sat against his palm, and energy crackled between his outstretched fingers. His horse ducked its head and whinnied, unnerved by what was occurring just behind its ears. Cassia shrank away from the display, remembering the charred bodies of Vescar’s soldiers, and the roots of her hair prickled horribly. It was hard not to push her heels into her own horse’s flanks and flee. Meredith, impassive as ever and undoubtedly used to these displays, looked on in silence.
“There, you see?” Baum let the unnatural glow expand into a globe that enveloped his entire hand. “I am more than I was before. Now, I am the warlock’s peer. I have been taught magic from men who learned their own skills from Malessar himself; I have studied volumes in all the hidden libraries and made practical use of every kind of sorcery and battle magic. No mortal man – no short-lived soldier, reliant on his wits and a blade – could have gained as much as I have, but this is what Pyraete willed me to do. And this is what will bring about Malessar’s downfall.”
The globe vanished as abruptly as it had formed, though Cassia’s skin still crawled. She tried to move the conversation on. Perhaps there was such a thing as too much knowledge, after all.
“But if we are bound for Hellea, sir, surely this is the wrong road?”
Meredith’s barked laugh was unexpected, cutting the air like a woodsman’s blunt axe might split a trunk. Already rattled, Cassia jerked reflexively on her reins and her horse skipped to one side. She glared at the tall prince, choking back a desire to curse him to the winds.
“The girl has you,” Meredith said, over her head. “Even if we seek to avoid the Emperor’s March, Hellea is to the south and we are headed westwards. This road will only take us back into the mountains.”
Baum turned his frown upon the prince and regarded him silently for a moment before replying. “There are other ways into the welcoming arms of the Empire, Meredith. One may approach from the west as well as from the north. This may be a longer route, but I think Malessar will wait a little longer for us yet.” The frown became a smile again and he beckoned Cassia to rejoin them. “We should cook that ham tonight. It will turn bad otherwise, and I do not fancy crossing these hills with an empty stomach. Perhaps you might find more roots to stew with it?”
Cassia nodded in eager agreement. Roots or sprouting leaves – in her experience there was always something nearby that could be adapted. And the search would give her a little precious time alone. Room to breathe, and room to think: I have a story to polish and rehearse, after all. Until she could summon the courage to practice aloud before Baum and Meredith, the vegetation of the western Antiachas would be a silent, uncritical audience.
Chapter Eight
After several days Baum led them away from the hills of the Antiachas, turning south toward the edge of the Hellean plains. The skies were heavy with storm clouds, gathering over the mountains behind them like sodden masses of cloth in a washerwoman’s yard. But the threatened rain held off, and the eastern sky held the promise of better weather to come.
Wrapped tight in one of Meredith’s travelling cloaks, Cassia stared out at these new lands with an initial excitement that quickly faded. This part of the world looked little different to Keskor and the North. She had expected something else, something better and fresher, in the same way that all the stories she knew told of heroes who came to new lands and found them filled with magic and wonder.
The real world wasn’t much like the stories. She was sure the likes of Renn the Fair never looked down on a fresh, dew-scented valley to find it no better or no worse – or no more noteworthy – than the one before. Perhaps it was just that she had not yet travelled far enough to truly see any difference.
She wondered how the world must seem to Baum, after so many centuries. Surely, if he had been everywhere and seen everything, nothing would be new or wondrous to him. To wander for endless years, knowing there was nothing new upon the face of the earth . . . she told herself that it was the sudden change in the direction of the sharp wind that made her shudder.
“This is Karistea,” Baum told her, sweeping one arm in an extravagant gesture to indicate the dull, barren fields that surrounded them. The ground was uneven, sharp rocks protruding from the thin covering of earth. No crops thrived here, only wiry, thorny brush seemed able to take root. Even the trees were twisted and thin, bent by the prevailing winds and by their own hunger, their roots spread wide through the paltry topsoil.
“It’s horrible,” she said. “Do people really li
ve here?”
“Not for many years,” Baum said.
Meredith’s head swung around. “If nobody lives here, then how does it still have a name?”
Baum laughed, a sharp barking sound. “To be more precise, people exist here, from time to time. Not usually for very long. But there is a road that crosses from Hellea to the far west, used by trading caravans – and by adventurous heroes, no doubt.” He smiled at Cassia, and she bit her lip, aware he was gently mocking her. “There’s always some enterprising soul who believes he can make a living of a sort along this road, whether they be caravan raiders or other exiles, but Karistea is a frugal, selfish land.”
“Gelis met the witches in Karistea,” Cassia remembered. “They told her if she left the light of their fire she would never find her way home again.” It was only one of the tales her father had recited, but Karistea was so inhospitable-looking for it to feel real.
Meredith stared across the scrub, as though he expected to see signs of a fire on the horizon. “Did she?”
“Did she what?”
“Find her way home.”
She hesitated, wondering if he too was making fun of her. It was impossible to tell by looking at him. She had to remind herself that he had been brought from far over the mountains. He couldn’t know any of the tales that were so common to her lands. “Of course she did – eventually,” she said. “How would we know the story otherwise?”
Her father had never ventured far beyond the safety of the old North. There were no distant relatives or old friends to impose upon, and no easy roads to travel, so these lands had no value in his eyes. He envied the wealth that could be earned in Hellea, but he wasn’t brave enough to take his own chances there. He told of the legends that passed along the old trade road, but he had never once seen it.
That’s one thing I have over you already, father. And I will take my chances and make them work too. Although, with Karistea so unwelcoming and cold, she wasn’t sure who had the better deal.
