Empress of the Fall

by David Hair

  Parryn touched his knee, looking up at him like a miserable hound, and offered him the other fig, but he shook his head. ‘It’s yours, brother.’ I’m not going to eat something flung at me by a stinking Noorie-lover.

  Parryn’s expression was piteously, almost comically, grateful. Arton put his hand on Valdyr’s shoulder, but a Keshi overseer shouted, ‘Move, you slugs!’ and with a collective groan, the prisoners began the painful walk home.

  *

  The sun was a pale orange disc floating in the haze by the time Valdyr’s gang reached the main camp. After relinquishing their picks, they were herded to the trenches to piss, then to the water troughs, where they were allowed two minutes to rinse the grime from their faces. Then Deko, a bald, bullnecked Vereloni overseer, stamped up. ‘Sal’Ahm,’ he said. ‘Listen up.’

  ‘Why? You going to sing a nasheed?’ Arton sneered.

  ‘Piss off back to your own people, traitor,’ another man growled.

  Deko sighed. ‘An’ I will, but first I have to tell you this: there’s a Godspeaker up at the big house who wants to speak to anyone who knows about a battle-mage, one of them wot fucked off just before the First Army surrendered.’

  ‘Well, we know they pissed off,’ Arton grunted. ‘The pricks didn’t even look back!’

  ‘The one they want was Mollachian,’ Deko said. ‘En’t one of you lot a Mollach?’

  All eyes turned to Valdyr. ‘I’m a Mollach,’ he admitted, because it was useless to deny it, but the attention set off a gnawing fear in his belly. Dear Kore, don’t let them find me . . . ‘I don’t know any magi,’ he insisted, praying the man would just leave.

  ‘This Godspeaker wants to speak to all Mollachs.’ Deko turned to the guards. ‘Unlock that one and bring him.’ A heavily armed guard unlocked Valdyr’s manacles, then hauled him to his feet. Deko grabbed his shoulder. ‘You gonna give us grief, lad?’

  Valdyr was over six foot now, and Arton had told him that when his face went hard, he could freeze a man’s heart. Would that I could. There’d be a trail of dead from here to Hebusalim. But resisting was pointless. ‘I’ll come, but your men can keep their rukking hands to themselves.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Deko lowered his voice. ‘You know what a Hadishah is – a mage-assassin? There’s one of them with the Godspeaker. I hope it’s not trouble for you, boy.’

  ‘Fuck you, convert.’

  Deko pulled a martyred face. ‘Sal’Ahm alaykum, Mollach.’ He marched Valdyr up the rocky slope and into the administrative compound, where servants were shifting crates – more food was spilled here than Valdyr’s gang ate in a week, and crows were already gobbling up what they could, squawking furiously.

  Deko took him to a small door at the rear of the main house, where a dead-eyed Keshi robed in black met them. The Keshi bade Deko wait outside, then walked slowly around Valdyr. He looked about thirty, with a dark pockmarked face and a thick moustache and beard. ‘What’s your name, slave?’ he asked, in accented Rondian.

  ‘Valyn Timak.’

  ‘You are Mollach? How old?’

  ‘Twenty-one,’ Valdyr lied. He was twenty-six, but any deception that might preserve his relative freedom was worth it.

  The Keshi pulled a ruby pendant necklace from beneath his black robes. ‘Know what this is?’

  ‘Everyone knows what they are: it’s a periapt.’

  ‘Then what does it tell you about me?’ the Keshi growled.

  That you’re magi and I should fear you, Valdyr inferred. Instead he said, ‘That you had a Rondian parent.’

  The Hadishah bared his teeth. ‘Amusing,’ he rasped, pulling the door open. ‘Enter.’ He pushed Valdyr ahead of him into a hallway hung with paintings and animal trophies. He heard the chatter of servants and even the tinkling laugh of a young woman, which set off a sudden, entirely unexpected pang in his chest. Then the Hadishah called, ‘My Lord?’ and propelled him firmly into a room.

  Three men were already inside: Bey, the commander of the camp, had an Amteh Godspeaker beside him, a grey-beard with a mild face who looked intently at Valdyr. Interest kindled in his eyes. ‘We may have struck gold, my friend,’ he said in Keshi to the third man, who was still looking out of the window, as if he didn’t want to see Valdyr at all.

  Or as if he feared what he might see. Then he turned, and Valdyr’s chest emptied of air.

  The man beside the window was tall, around six foot, strongly built and clearly Yurosian despite his Eastern garb and the Amteh trinkets he wore. His hair and beard were golden and his eyes bright blue. He looked in his early thirties, with a few laugh lines lending character to his frank, handsome face.

  Valdyr’s knees gave way and he fell to the floor, his eyes flooding with tears, because despite the years and the changes, he still knew Kyrik, his elder brother.

  *

  Valdyr stared at his brother across the table, his heart and mind churning. He didn’t know what to do, what to think, what to say, for Kyrik had converted to the Amteh.

  The sense of shame and betrayal poisoned all the joy he’d thought to have at this moment. Kyrik was one of them, a groveller to false prophets. He’d taken the soft way out while he, the younger brother who’d always been in awe of his older sibling, had stayed strong.

  Kyrik had pulled him to his feet and tried to embrace him, but he’d hurled his older brother away, a small part of him amazed he could do that because he’d always been the little one. Kyrik was unhurt, but clearly shaken. He looked at Bey and the Godspeaker meaningfully, and the two Ahmedhassans left in silence, leaving the brothers alone.

  How many years has it been?

  Valdyr had been nine in 918; he didn’t even have the gnosis, but Kyrik, his idol, though only sixteen himself, was going to war. He’d just graduated from what passed for an Arcanum in provincial Augenheim and been assigned to a Midrean legion – taking a military commission was often the only way a border-kingdom mage could be graduated, and it didn’t seem a steep price to pay. After all, the First Crusade had been profitable for the magi houses, and virtually no one had been hurt. Eastern men were puny and weak, conventional wisdom said; no one thought there was any risk.

  Valdyr begged and begged his father to let him go with Kyrik, to be his squire, and finally even stern Elgren Sarkany had relented. To the brothers, it was an incredible adventure to leave Mollachia and cross Verelon and Pontus, then to ride across the great Leviathan Bridge to a whole new world. They saw magical vistas: giant seas, massive coastal cliffs and vast deserts, all so different to the dirt-poor mountainous kingdom they called home.

  Their legion had been assigned garrison duties in the Zhassi Valley and Kyrik, an Air-mage, was given a skiff and ordered to fly daily patrols. Valdyr, his brother’s squire and a kind of honorary banner-man and mascot, had been permitted to join him when he was off-duty. The last time he’d seen his brother was after an apparent freak gust of wind had smashed their little windcraft into the sand, then four black-clad magi had overwhelmed them, disarming them with contemptuous ease – the Sarkanys were only quarter-bloods, Kyrik was barely trained and Valdyr hadn’t yet gained the gnosis. Valdyr could still remember his disbelief when their captors unmasked, revealing Keshi faces with hook noses and black beards, all youthful, all magi.

  How could a Keshi have the gnosis, the gift of Kore to Yuros? But the Keshi leader had laughed at his amazement. ‘See, little boy: this gift, it does not come from your God at all.’

  They expected death, but instead their captors had locked them in a Rune of the Chain, not just to bind Kyrik’s gnosis but to prevent either of them from being scryed, then bundled them aboard the Keshi craft and taken them east, into a perfumed nightmare.

  They’d not been spared out of mercy, but to breed more magi for the East. There were apparently many hidden camps in the mountains where all captured magi, men and women, were set to servicing Keshi ‘volunteers’. Some of the women looked upon it as a divinely appointed mission, but in truth, it was rape, for both parties.<
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  And I endured it for eight years, and worse things as well, while you took the easy way out, ‘Brother’. When Kyrik tried again to talk to him, he turned his head away.

  ‘Valdyr,’ Kyrik said, ‘please listen – I’ve looked for you unceasingly since the Third Crusade ended – they lost track of you in 930, when your breeding-house was raided by Javonesi magi – the Javonesi insisted you’d joined the First Army, and I hoped you’d made your way back to Mollachia. When I was finally allowed to write home, Father had heard nothing of your fate, so I realised you must either be dead or a prisoner. I’ve been to every camp in Kesh and Dhassa and now, at last . . . Brother, it’s really you. I’ve found you—’ Tears clogged his voice.

  Valdyr stared at Kyrik’s Eastern dress and choked out, ‘Valdyr vagyok’ – I am Valdyr – ‘de nem batyam!’ – but you are not my brother.

  Kyrik’s face twisted in pain. ‘Val, I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through,’ he replied in their native tongue.

  ‘I’ve been in chains for five years,’ Valdyr snarled. ‘Five damned years! When did you get out of the breeding-house? 921? So you’ve been free for nine years – and you’re still here?’

  ‘Then I was smart,’ Kyrik snapped back. ‘I tried to get you released as well, but they wouldn’t, and when I finally persuaded Godspeaker Paruq to help find you, you’d vanished.’

  ‘A damned Godspeaker?’ Valdyr swore. ‘Do you remember the day we left home? Father’s Confessor anointed us with the sacred chrism and we swore to be true to Kore. We swore!’

  ‘Paruq helped me find you—’

  ‘In return for what? Your soul?’

  ‘No, but if that was what I needed to pay, I would have!’

  ‘Did you suck his cock to help persuade him?’ Valdyr felt his fists bunching. ‘Or did you put in extra shifts in the breeding-houses so you could father more magi for the Shihad?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Don’t be such a child.’

  ‘A child? What would I know about being a child? I lost that chance while you were cosying up to your captors.’ Valdyr stood. ‘Take me back to my chains. I’d rather be with my real brothers, not a turncoat like you.’

  Kyrik stood also, his expression pained. ‘Valdyr, don’t be stupid. I didn’t search for you for five years only to let you go. I’ve come to take you home – to Mollachia.’

  Home. The word hit Valdyr like a blow, conjuring visions of jagged white peaks, of ice-jammed rivers and black rock, of steam rising from hot pools, of men wrapped in furs, of women in brightly coloured headscarves dancing the harvest in. Of brilliant sunlight cutting through the mists like a reaper’s scythe. Of wolves howling at dusk, their call haunting the valleys, and the bellow of the stags in mating season like distant thunder. Of incense and prayer in frigid chapels, and armoured warriors pledging their swords.

  Then all he could see were memories of him and his brother: Kyrik leading midnight escapades into the woods, or teaching him to ride and swim. His first hunt, only seven years old and bewildered by it all, but still their laughter echoed through the pines. Kyrik, allowing him to pledge as his squire, and the chrism oil on his forehead as they knelt, swearing to the Crusade. How close they’d felt, and how proud he’d been.

  He sank back to his chair, put his head in his hands and wept uncontrollably.

  *

  ‘He needs to be alone,’ Kyrik Sarkany told Godspeaker Paruq, his Keshi fluent. He’d left Valdyr to his tears, understanding his younger brother’s pain, though it was horrible to watch.

  ‘He feels betrayed,’ the Godspeaker observed. ‘He’s remained true to his faith in adversity.’

  ‘Are you saying I’m weak?’

  ‘No, my friend,’ Paruq replied, ‘you know I’m not. It takes greater strength to open your mind to another culture. You aren’t weak.’

  ‘That’s not how Valdyr sees it.’

  ‘Then you must open his eyes, otherwise your rift will never heal.’

  ‘I believe you.’ Kyrik rubbed tiredly at his brow, still shaken to have found his brother after so long a hunt. It hurt that he was so near, yet still out of reach. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’

  ‘That’s natural: these aren’t light matters. First, let’s get you both away from here. I have friends nearby who will provide for us. It will let him see past this place to what life now offers.’

  Kyrik and Paruq had been friends ever since the Godspeaker had taken the rebellious young prisoner under his wing. Kyrik had been violently angry, assaulting guards and even the helpless women they sent into his cell, a self-destructive campaign to escape, or die trying. Paruq had understood; he’d listened, and talked frankly about Gods and Crusades and Shihads, about the damage of war and the way it mutilated society for generations – and about the need to reconcile and forgive, if one was to ever leave anger behind.

  ‘What does life offer him now, Paruq?’ Kyrik asked.

  ‘Home, of course. I promised you I would get you home when he was found. Salim has said that low-blood magi must no longer be kept in bondage; that was a demand made by the Ordo Costruo, part of their price for aiding the rebuilding of Hebusalim, and we honour that pledge. You would be home already, had you not insisted on staying to find Valdyr.’

  Kyrik ran fingers through his long blond hair. ‘He’s asked for the release of his fellow prisoners – the ones he was chained to. I said I’d see what I could do—’

  ‘Sorry,’ Paruq said, ‘it was difficult enough gaining permission to release Valdyr. I’ve done all I can.’

  Kyrik bowed his head. ‘I know, and I can’t thank you enough.’

  Since his release into Paruq’s care, Kyrik had even been permitted to use his gnosis, once he’d given his sworn word he would not escape. He’d been true to that oath – Mollachs took honour very seriously. It was through Paruq that he’d come to believe that all Gods were One God, and whether you called him Ahm or Kore or any other name didn’t really matter. Now when he prayed, he felt an incredible inner stillness and sense of affirmation, something he’d never got in the forbidding churches of Mollachia. To him, praying among the Amteh was his portal to the One God.

  ‘Father will hurl me from the battlements of Hegikaro when he finds I converted,’ he sighed.

  ‘I know how much your father means to you. Nobody needs to know where your heart lies, my friend, nobody but Ahm. Remember that the Prophet initially concealed his faith from his own father, for the sake of peace in his family. Ahm knows you, Kyrik Sarkany. If you are unable to worship openly, then reconcile with your family and worship in your heart.’

  ‘There are Shihadi Godspeakers who would stone you for those words.’

  ‘Indeed – but they live in a fantasy world of absolutes and I live in the real world, with the rest of humanity.’ Paruq stood. ‘Let us go, whilst the twilight lingers. Your brother will be happier when he is away from here.’

  As Kyrik entered the room where his brother still sat, he was struck again by how big and strong Valdyr looked, despite the privations of these last few years. His face was like a skull, his dark hair long and unkempt, his moustaches and beard halfway down his chest, making him look grimly fanatical. The boy he’d last seen thirteen years ago really was gone for ever.

  ‘Val, we’re going to take the skiff away from here. Will you come?’

  His brother looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow. ‘Tell me one thing. Did you convert to help find me, or because you wanted ease?’

  Oh Valdyr, that’s the wrong question. I converted because I found truth.

  But he couldn’t say that, not yet, so he put on the courtly mask he’d cultivated while at Paruq’s side, to deal with those victorious Keshi and Dhassan lords who wanted to crow at ‘their’ victory and humiliate the tamed ferang. ‘I did what I had to, to survive and find you. That’s all.’

  ‘Is Kore still your Saviour and Redeemer?’

  All Gods are one. ‘Yes, Kore is still my Redeemer.’

  Valdyr fixe
d him with a chilling stare. ‘My brother would never lie about such things.’

  Kyrik forced a wry smile. ‘Your brother lied all the time! He lied about stealing from the kitchen, and late-night raids on the orchard. He lied about walking on the river when it froze. He lied about taking Father’s bow to hunt beavers on the shores of Lake Droszt – and he even taught his younger brother how to lie just as convincingly.’

  Valdyr’s mouth twisted painfully. ‘Father was never fooled. You wrote to him, you said?’

  ‘I did, and he was overjoyed. He wanted me home as soon as possible, but I needed to find you first.’ He watched that sink in, saw his brother’s hands open and close, over and over. ‘Brother, we can go home now. Home. And we’ll never need to speak or think about the East ever again.’

  Slowly, reluctantly, Valdyr opened his arms and embraced him. Then came the tears and the shaking. It was hours before they took to the air, and days before Valdyr could speak without breaking down.

  9

  The Queen’s News

  Corinea

  The Ordo Costruo made wild claims in the wake of the Third Crusade, that a woman identifying herself as Corinea had been found. She claimed that Corineus was a Souldrinker, and that she saved the world by killing him. This is clearly a heresy, and one wonders at the motives of the Ordo Costruo in sponsoring her.

  Fortunately, she died soon afterwards, and little more has been heard on the matter, but one wonders why it is that women are so prone to falsehood.

  GRAND PRELATE DOMINIUS WURTHER, A NEW HERESY (PAMPHLET), PALLAS, 932

  Pallas, Rondelmar, Yuros

  Martrois 935