by David Hair
‘It is my command, turncoat,’ Korion told him in a low voice.
Vult flushed angrily. ‘The future of this empire is at stake. This is not a time to think of one’s personal standing. This is a time to reflect on how one can contribute to the greater good.’ His eyes focused on some imaginary point halfway between Korion and Mater-Imperia Lucia. ‘This is a time to put the wellbeing of our emperor first.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Wurther, sipping wine with a twinkle in his eye, earning him a belligerent glare from Betillon, which troubled the Churchman not at all.
‘The common people, the merchant–magi and even many of the loyal magi spread throughout the empire do not wish to see another Crusade like the last. They were promised the world, my lords. They were told to expect plunder beyond all dreams, that the East was awash with gold. And I believed that too, as firmly as any.’
Gyle knew Vult’s financial situation. The Governor had invested heavily in the Crusades and lost.
Vult continued, ‘Argundy, Bricia and Noros are from the same stock as Rondelmar, yet they baulk. The people of Schlessen, Verelon, Estellayne, Sydia … they refuse involvement outright. Last time they invested men, money and stores, and they lost all but the men. They slaughtered heathens by the thousand, but what did they gain? Nothing – Pallas took it all. Why would we march again? Why?’
We? Gyle smiled to himself, then caught Lucia watching him. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Vult tapped his papers. ‘Only one thing will bring the provinces into this Crusade: the belief that this time will be different. And only one thing can send that signal: the leadership of this venture being given to the man they associate with balancing the power of Pallas with that of the provinces: Duke Echor of Argundy. Appoint him, and the provinces will join. Fail to do so, and you may as well prepare to man the entire Crusade on your own.’ He didn’t say ‘if you can’, but those words hung in the air.
The room fell silent. Korion and Betillon exchanged a glance as if daring each other to protest. Constant still looked childishly confused, but the others were catching on: Lucia wants this. It will happen.
Korion stood, and Gyle watched the man swallow his pride as he addressed himself to Lucia. ‘Mater-Imperia, I apologise. This plan is wise. A military commission is nothing when compared with the perpetuation of the might and majesty of the House of Sacrecour.’
No one had ever called Kaltus Korion stupid.
The same could not be said for Tomas Betillon. ‘I don’t understand,’ he grumbled. ‘Let the proclamations go out, see how many sign up first, before we commit to something we don’t need to.’
‘And be seen to back down?’ Dubrayle asked caustically. ‘I think not. An emperor states a path and does not deviate. He does not negotiate with his subjects: he just makes sure his proclamations are realistic and enforceable.’
‘There’s another thing,’ Gyle threw in, as if it had just occurred to him. ‘You have the battle-standards of the Noros legions in your hands, and many from previous rebellions in Argundy and other provinces. Give them back.’
Korion’s jaw dropped. ‘Fuck you, Noroman. I keep my trophies.’
‘If the battle-standards are returned, men will flock to enlist,’ Vult chimed in. ‘They will see themselves as forgiven. It will give them back their pride, and give them a reason to forgive the empire.’
‘Forgive?’ sneered Constant. ‘I taught them a lesson in the forgiveness of the empire: there is none!’
You taught us, did you, your Majesty? Gyle thought. Was that how it was? I understood you spent most of the Noros Revolt cowering in fear of assassins like me.
‘It is but the misguided perception of the common man,’ Vult replied smoothly, ‘but these feelings persist.’
The emperor’s mother stroked her son’s arm and whispered something in his ear. The emperor nodded slowly. ‘My mother reminds me that the people of Noros are yokels. We are fortunate to have two such rarities as yourselves able to attend upon us without chewing grass and stinking of cowshit.’
Betillon smirked. No one else moved a muscle. The moment stretched on.
Well, that shows us the true extent of our welcome. Gyle turned slightly. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Belonius, apparently impervious to the insult. But then, he probably shares Constant’s assessment of his own people.
‘The suggestion is an excellent one,’ Mater-Imperia Lucia told the room. ‘The provinces know who their masters are. Rubbing their noses in it is counter-productive. Give them Echor in charge and their battle-standards back and they will enlist in droves.’
‘They’ll outnumber us in Kesh,’ Korion reminded her.
‘Not significantly. And once there, I am quite sure you will turn it to our advantage.’
‘How?’ sniffed Korion. ‘There’s no one to fight. We hear the Amteh priests have declared some sort of holy war but, realistically, they’ve got no magi, no constructs and no discipline. Crusades aren’t wars, they’re two-year treasure-hunts.’
Lucia permitted herself a small smile. ‘To which Magister Gyle has a response.’ She made a welcoming gesture. ‘Our guest awaits.’
‘Our guest?’ chorused Korion and Betillon in mutual exasperation.
‘This is the Closed Council,’ Constant whined, ‘not the tap-room of a tavern.’
Gyle ignored him, rose and walked to the door. He tapped, and the guard opened it. He breathed deeply as he went into the antechamber, inhaling fresher air. They’re like squabbling children, not leaders of men. They’ve no vision, no plan. It’s all just pettiness, self-interest and boasting.
Except Lucia. Her, I could follow.
The man waiting in the antechamber was robed in black with heavy furs draped about his shoulders, despite the summer heat. He dropped his hood and stood as Gyle entered the room. With his dark coppery skin, jet-black hair pulled tightly back from his face and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, he was both striking and alien. His eyes glinted like emerald chips. Rubies adorned his ears, and a diamond periapt hung about his neck.
‘Emir,’ Gyle said, striding forward. ‘I trust you are well?’
‘Magister,’ Emir Rashid Mubarak of Halli’kut purred in welcome. He embraced Gyle courteously, kissing both his cheeks and patting his back in the space between the shoulder blades. In Kesh that was a gesture of reassurance – see, I could kill you, but I do not. Rashid was officially the fourth-ranked mage of Antonin Meiros’ Ordo Costruo, a three-quarter-blood descended from a pure-blood and a half-blood mage. His half-blood mother had been the child of a pure-blood who had married into a Keshi royal line before Meiros’ Leviathan Bridge was even completed. Her son was the result: a polished gemstone of a man, finely cut and glittering. ‘I am deathly cold. How do you stand it?’
‘This is summer, my lord. I advise you to depart before it snows.’
‘I shall be leaving immediately afterwards. How goes the meeting?’
‘Well enough,’ Gyle said. ‘Constant is in a sour mood. Address yourself to Lucia and ignore the idiocy from Korion and Betillon.’
‘Tomas Betillon is well-known to me. I am practised in dealing with him.’ Rashid shrugged. ‘What is that word you use for us: barbarian? He is that, I am thinking.’
Gyle glanced at the guard, who was staring at Rashid as if he were a construct beast of unusual strangeness, and suppressed a smile. ‘He surely is.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we go in?’
Vult met them at the door. ‘Ah, there you are.’ He inclined his head towards Rashid.
The Emir bowed. ‘It is my great pleasure to meet you at last. Magister Gyle has told me so much of you.’
Vult’s mouth twitched with humour. ‘Nothing bad, I trust, Gurvon?’
‘Only the truth, Bel.’
‘Oh dear. Well, Emir, you came despite that. We are about to discuss your role in our plans. Come in, my friend.’
Rashid paused. ‘Do not mistake me for a friend, Magister Vult. I am far from
that.’
Belonius Vult smiled smoothly. ‘We have enemies in common, Emir. That is the strongest form of friendship I’ve ever known.’
1
How You Meet Your End
The Rune of the Chain
The ability to lock up a mage’s powers is unfortunately required. Though we are all descendants of the Blessed Three Hundred, some amongst us are unworthy of that lineage. To cut off a mage from their great gift is a drastic step, not easily or lightly done. The sad truth, however, is that villainy does manifest amongst us, and is magnified by our capacity for harm.
MARTEN ROBINIUS, ARCANUM MAGISTER, BRES
Norostein, Noros, on the continent of Yuros
Julsep 928
1st month of the Moontide
Jeris Muhren, Watch Captain of Norostein, descended the clockwise curving stairs. The darkened stairwell was narrow, damp and treacherous. A dank, stale smell rose from below, along with the clank and clatter of stone and steel. It was early morning on a summer’s day outside, but winter’s cold still lurked in the dungeons of Norostein’s Governor’s Palace. There were no guards down here, unusually. Their absence made him wary and he loosened his sword as he strode on.
He pushed open the door at the bottom of the stair and entered a small chamber, where he was surprised to find another before him: a youngish-looking man with a weak chin partially hidden by a wispy blond beard. His thin body was draped in heavy velvet robes and a gold band encircled his worry-creased brow.
Muhren hastily dropped to his knee. ‘Your Majesty,’ he murmured. What’s he doing here?
‘Captain Muhren,’ King Phyllios III of Noros responded formally. ‘Please, stand.’
Muhren rose, puzzled. Phyllios III was a puppet ruler, with the governor’s hand firmly up his arse – at least, that was the word on the street. The failed Revolt had broken the Noros monarchy, leaving the king a powerless sideshow in a decrepit palace. The Governor ruled Noros now, in the name of the emperor – but right now that same Governor was a prisoner in his own dungeons.
‘My King, you should not be here.’
Phyllios shrugged lightly. ‘The guards were ordered away an hour ago, Captain, and no one saw me arrive. I am not so confined to my palace as you might think.’
Muhren blinked. Last day on the job and I’m still learning.
‘How is our prisoner, Captain?’ the king asked. His voice was tentative, but there was a certain vengeful cunning Muhren had not heard before. Phyllios had been a young man during the Revolt, when he had seen his people crushed. The Rondians made an example of him, forcing him to become a parade-attraction: he had been flogged naked before his people before being forced to crawl before the emperor and beg forgiveness. That had broken whatever manner of man he might have become and turned him into a powerless cringer – at least, so Muhren had once thought. Appointing the watch captain was one of the very few prerogatives left to the king and Muhren had been Phyllios’ choice. That pact had revealed a stronger man than most knew, but he was still very cautious, even timid.
‘He is deeply unhappy, my liege. Cold, uncomfortable, and very much afraid.’
‘Of whom? Surely not you or me.’ Phyllios’ tone was self-mocking, but not self-pitying.
‘Of the Inquisition, my liege.’
‘Inquisitors are coming here?’ Phyllios’ calm wavered. ‘Inevitably, my liege. He’s an Imperial Governor, arrested for treason. They will most certainly be here in days, and they will take him away and break him in the process of deciding whether he is guilty of anything. The emperor cannot afford to permit any governor to appear to be acting beyond his authority.’
Phyllios nodded gravely. ‘What will they learn from him, Captain?’
Ah, now that is the question. I don’t care about anything else they might learn, but they will inevitably find out about Alaron, Cym and the Scytale, and my own role in those events. And then all Hel will burst free.
But for your own safety, I can’t tell you this, my King. Muhren had ransacked the governor’s offices, to give himself a legitimate reason to arrest and imprison Vult in the aftermath of the struggle to reach the Scytale. Now he lied to his king. ‘There was nothing altogether startling in what we found, my liege, just evidence of the usual corrupt games men like Vult play. Cronyism. Backhanders. Illegal interests. Nothing that will rebound against the throne.’
‘How many people know he is here, Captain?’ the king asked.
‘Too many, my liege.’ Vult’s arrest had been carried out with the help of a squad of soldiers on the outskirts of the city; that had been unavoidable. Muhren wasn’t naïve enough to believe they would stay silent on the matter, especially as they had brought back two more bodies, Vult’s accomplices, and buried Jarius Langstrit in a secret grave.
‘Do you wish him to be questioned, Captain? By the Inquisitors, that is.’ Phyllios’ eyes narrowed with a shrewdness he seldom displayed in public. ‘Is there aught he might say that would imperil you?’
Muhren hesitated. That’s the thing, isn’t it? ‘A trained Inquisitor can learn anything there is to learn, my liege. From anyone. If they decided there was something to be learned, they would question anyone connected.’ He met his king’s eyes.
Phyllios nodded slowly, hinting at an astuteness few would have credited him. ‘I will miss you, Muhren. You’ve served Norostein well. I’ll not find another like you.’
Muhren bowed his head, suddenly feeling emotional. He’d put his heart and soul into the Norostein Watch, but the king was right: he had to be gone before the Inquisitors arrived. ‘I will ensure no trail leads back to you, my liege. And I will be gone by sunset.’
‘Farewell, Captain.’ Phyllios reached out and patted Muhren’s arm, the closest to an affectionate gesture that Muhren had ever seen from the withdrawn, lonely man.
‘Farewell sire. May you live forever.’
Phyllios shook his head slightly. ‘No one cheats death, my friend. It is only a question of what we achieve in life, and of how we meet our end. These are the things that matter.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I will pray for you, and for the soul of our prisoner.’ Then he was gone.
It’s how we meet our end …
Muhren composed himself for a few moments, then he turned to the opposite door and descended further into the dungeon. The king was right: the guards were gone. His boots echoed down the silent corridor.
Belonius Vult did not turn immediately when Muhren unlocked the door to his cell and entered. He shut the door behind him before appraising the governor coldly.
Vult was a pure-blood mage, twice Muhren’s blood-rank and roughly four times as powerful. That was how things worked with the gnosis. We are literally a different breed to other men – and to each other. Some magi bore that difference with humility, placing their skills at the service of the whole, but most were like Vult: arrogant beyond belief. The deserving Blessed, unchallengeable, and utterly self-serving.
Vult turned at last, and his eyes blazed with fury as he recognised his visitor. His shoulders hunched as he drew in a deep breath and his hands unfurled in whatever gesture would accompany the devastating spell he ached to unleash. But he was imprisoned in a dungeon and bound by a Chain-rune, rendering him impotent. A Chain-rune usually only constrained one weaker than oneself, and Vult was far stronger than Muhren in gnostic abilities – but it also prevented gnostic energies from replenishing, and Vult had been utterly exhausted when he had been captured. For perhaps the first time in his adult life, Belonius Vult was helpless.
Despite his plight, he retained a certain majesty. His robes might be soiled, his face dirty and his hair and beard tangled, but his bearing was more regal than the king’s. If he was afraid, it didn’t show; Muhren could see only anger and vengefulness. He was obviously plotting exactly how he would visit retribution when someone inevitably intervened on his behalf.
‘So, do you have the Scytale? Not that you would have the wit to understand it,’ Vult asked spitefully. ‘You sword-swingi
ng oaf: do you not realise that the Inquisition are coming? They’ll take it from you and pluck out your eyes for merely looking at it.’
‘Yours too, Vult.’
‘Langstrit died grovelling,’ Vult jeered. ‘Eighteen years spent as an imbecile and he regained sanity just long enough to die at my hands. I wonder if he thought it worth it?’
‘To keep the Scytale from you? I’m sure he did.’
Vult scowled, and belatedly changed tactics. ‘Muhren, it’s not too late for you. I’ve read treatises on the Scytale. I can unravel it and together we could use it. We’re both men of Noros – veterans of the same war. Together, we could use the Scytale to make Noros great – the equal of Pallas.’
Muhren had been expecting the offer, but he would not have trusted Belonius Vult with a single fibre of his being, not if he were the last man alive. ‘We don’t need your help, Vult.’
Vult’s eyes flashed. ‘We? We, is it? Think what you’re saying, man! Alaron Mercer is a green-bud – a failed mage. And that Rimoni bint has barely a trickle of gnostic-blood. The little quim has no value at all. It’s hardly a cabal to inspire fear in your enemies, is it? Let alone to make Mater-Imperia tremble. You need me, Muhren, if you’re going to survive, let alone Ascend. You should be begging for my aid.’
Muhren looked at him levelly. Vult might be considered devious and cunning, but he was entirely predictable in his lust for gain and glory, dangling dreams as bait, and always with himself at the centre of the universe. ‘Where is Darius Fyrell?’ he asked, the only question he had come to ask. In the battle for the Scytale, only Fyrell had escaped. He couldn’t afford loose ends.
Vult sneered. ‘Fyrell? Out there, planning my rescue, of course. Seeking the opportunity to strike back.’
‘What did he know?’
‘Everything,’ Vult told him, gloating.
Muhren considered that. Darius Fyrell had been Vult’s man for a long time, so it was highly probable that he had known exactly what they hunted. He may even have been amongst those who had questioned General Jarius Langstrit during his secret incarceration. Fyrell was a formidable mage – a necromancer, primarily – and a total blackguard. His loyalty to Vult was not blind, but it was strong. Tesla Anborn had burned him badly, but necromancers were death-mages: they could survive dreadful injuries. He did not doubt that Fyrell was out there somewhere, and quite capable of launching a one-man assault on these dungeons.
