Empress of the Fall

by David Hair

‘Hush,’ Lady Jenet Brunlye whispered. ‘Be quiet. I don’t have much time.’ There was a nimbus of light around her.

  Her aura, he realised. I’m seeing her gnostic aura!

  Lady Jenet took his hand and pressed it to her lips. ‘Don’t be afraid, Cordan. I’ve come from your Uncle Garod. I’m here to help you. And you’ve gained the gnosis: how does it feel?’

  His heart thrilled at her words. She’s come from Uncle Garod! I knew she was special! Her hands on his made his whole body tingle. ‘I feel strange,’ he confessed. ‘Dizzy.’

  ‘That’s normal: it’ll pass as you learn to master it.’

  He glanced around the room. ‘How did you get past the guards?’

  ‘I didn’t come in that way.’ Jenet caressed his cheek. ‘Are you ambitious, Cordan?’

  Her touch was like silk. He could scarcely breathe. ‘I suppose, yes,’ he stammered.

  ‘And are you ready to learn the gnosis?’

  ‘I can’t wait!’

  ‘It’ll make a man of you,’ Jenet whispered, her perfume washing over him as she bent close, so close she could have kissed him. ‘It’ll give you the power to seize your birthright.’

  Cordan looked around, scared. Was this a trap set by sinister old Setallius? But his brain couldn’t think beyond her enticing smell and touch.

  ‘We’re going to free you and Coramore soon,’ she told him. ‘Garod is preparing. Be ready.’

  Cordan swallowed. ‘But wouldn’t that—?’

  ‘Start a war? Perhaps. And would that be so wrong, when the cause is the overthrow of a usurper? Stay vigilant,’ she whispered, her breath tickling his ear. ‘And when the time comes, you and your sister must do exactly as I say.’ She pressed her lips to his forehead, and then – thrillingly – to his lips. Then she was out of reach, vanishing behind a tapestry and gone, the click of a hidden latch the only sound.

  Cordan lay back, trembling with desire, fear and ambition.

  10

  Homecoming

  Mollachia

  Our mission took us into a small kingdom wedged into the mountains bordering the vast Schlessen forests, peopled by a strange, superstitious people who claim to be born of the earth itself. They have been slow to accept Kore into their hearts, but I have hopes that they will come to know his love.

  BROTHER DEVHRO, KORE MISSIONARY, MOLLACHIA, 713

  Pontus and Sydia, Yuros

  Aprafor 935

  Seventeen years ago, Kyrik and Valdyr Sarkany had crossed the Pontic Sea, riding across the famous Leviathan Bridge, that incredible straight line of stone running three hundred miles to link Yuros to Antiopia. They’d believed they were destined for glory, a sixteen-year-old barely trained battle-mage and a nine-year-old boy with no gnosis at all. Looking back, Kyrik could barely believe their naïveté.

  They returned on a trading-dhou, a Keshi windship piloted by a Keshi Air-mage, a young woman wrapped in a bekira-shroud. The small craft had a crew of just four, but it was a struggle to stay out of their way.

  Since finding his brother, Kyrik’s life had been a blur: Paruq had kept his promise, even commissioning passage back to Yuros for them. At the end of the Third Crusade, the Ordo Costruo had not just regained control of the Bridge but had unlocked new energies to command the sky above – there were stories of them unleashing lightning to destroy the Rondian Emperor’s windfleet. Kyrik wasn’t sure he believed that, but flying over the Pontic Sea was no longer something one did without permission from the order – and paying for the privilege.

  They’d had to fly to Southpoint Tower, an immense pinnacle of shaped stone on the north coast of Dhassa, to have their cargo inspected. A metal panel had been fixed to the mast, enabling the tower magi to identify the vessel, but the magi had ignored the passengers.

  ‘They’ve no real interest beyond the security of the Bridge,’ Paruq had said. ‘I suppose if the sultan came here they might look askance, but you’re going home, and I’m just humble Paruq, the trader.’

  Kyrik had found a perch in the prow which was draughty, but offered the best views. Valdyr had simply taken his six-foot frame into a corner, rolled into a blanket and closed his eyes. He still looked far from healthy; his body was all sinew, and his grey-slate eyes were cold as mountain peaks. It was hard to reconcile this grim, haunted man with the joyful boy he’d been.

  ‘If you hoped to see the Bridge, my friend, you will be disappointed.’ Paruq joined him, his cheeks ruddy from the wind. ‘The seas are high, and the Bridge is far below the surface.’

  ‘It’s a Sunsurge year,’ Kyrik pointed out, and at Paruq’s questioning gaze, added, ‘it’s what we call the middle years between Moontides, when the seas are at their highest and the rainfall doubles. In Mollachia the snows are deepest in a Sunsurge winter.’

  ‘During such years the wet seasons in Ahmedhassa are longer – a blessing.’

  Kyrik laughed. ‘The Sunsurge is a curse at home.’

  Home. There was that word again. He could think of little else. Even Valdyr was excited, Kyrik thought, though his brother’s emotions remained bottled up inside him. Something damaged him badly. Was it the slave-camps or the breeding-house? He prayed that being home and among his own people would heal his soul.

  ‘So where will you set us down?’ he asked Paruq. ‘Pontus?’ Pontus was at the southeast tip of Yuros; it would mean a long ride to Mollachia.

  Paruq smiled. ‘I think we can do better than that. How does the Bunavian Gap sound?’

  Kyrik stared. ‘Really? That would take hundreds of miles off our journey – but surely a Keshi craft isn’t permitted so far into Yuros? And why would you even take us so far?’

  Paruq chuckled. ‘Your empire ignores Pontus and the East entirely, except during the Moontide. A trader is free to go anywhere he can make money. Keshi traders have been dealing with the Sydian tribes for some time.’

  ‘The Sydians? But they’re savages—’

  ‘All men were savages once, even Mollachs,’ Paruq chided. ‘They are a primitive people, true, but open to change. And their horse-stock is incredible.’

  ‘When did you become interested in horses?’

  ‘I’m not. My interest is only to see you well on your way.’

  The young pilot-mage chewed betel-leaf and sniffed powdered opium constantly to keep herself awake during the two days and nights it took to cross the sea. Despite being the only mage in the crew, she was very much the junior, barked at by the captain and snapped at if she fumbled a tack. When Kyrik finally realised that she was close to exhaustion, he helped recharge the keel – he hadn’t the skill to pilot her craft, but he could at least do that.

  They rested two nights in Pontus, which wasn’t the bustling place he’d expected; Paruq told him it only filled up during the Moontide. But the city was still very diverse, with new Keshi and Dhassan quarters as well as areas peopled mostly by Rondians and other Western nations. Everyone was a trader, everything had a price, and there was a seedy air of avarice. Dhassan and Keshi whores, the discarded wives of soldiers, filled the streets, and the city watch didn’t venture outside the central environs where the wealthy dwelt. Kyrik was glad to move on.

  ‘I’m surprised how many Easterners live here,’ he remarked to Paruq as their dhou rose into the air and tacked westwards.

  ‘The Ordo Costruo have guaranteed no more Crusades will cross the Bridge. People are preparing for the next trading season, believing it will be safe.’ Paruq frowned. ‘I am not so sure: there are many old wounds to heal before anything like true peace can return.’

  They left Pontus and followed the Imperial Road west, inland of the coastal ranges. The road was virtually empty, with just the occasional well-guarded caravan traversing the ancient trade-route; they were the only windvessel in the sky. A cold northerly forced them to wrap up tightly, and not just at night when they landed so that the strung-out pilot-mage could sleep.

  ‘I saw snow on peaks to the north,’ Valdyr commented the second night as they sat besid
e their campfire. ‘It will have been a hard winter at home.’

  ‘Ai,’ Kyrik answered absently, making his brother frown.

  ‘You’re not in Kesh any more. “Ysh”, Brother – remember?’

  Mostly they’d been speaking Rondian to each other, the language of the legions and the slave-camps. They’d not heard their own language since they left Mollachia all those years ago. But now, Mollach words were stealing into their speech, a foretaste of home.

  ‘Ysh,’ Kyrik conceded, passing Valdyr a chicken leg. They shared a silent meal, Valdyr content with the silence, until finally, Kyrik said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Valdyr glanced at him, but made no response. Mollach men weren’t supposed ever to be sorry: no regrets, no remorse. Mollachia was too hard and unforgiving a place to waste energy on what might have been. You made your decision and lived – or died – with it.

  He doesn’t forgive me, and why should he? He never had a Paruq to rescue and guide him. He ran fingers through his blond hair, and unconsciously, Valdyr mirrored the gesture, combing his thick black mane away from his face. Their different colouring existed in many Mollach families: Mollachia had been settled first by the so-called Stonefolk, a Yothic people, the first race of western Yuros, then Andressans, led by Zlateyr the Archer, had moved into the valley. After initial warfare, the two groups, the fair and the dark, had put aside their differences, so the tales went.

  Kyrik tapped his chin, seeking to spark a conversation. ‘I suppose I shall have to grow moustaches, now we’re returning home.’ It was the custom in Mollachia to go clean-chinned in summer, bearded in winter, but luxuriant moustaches were prized year-round. Kyrik had been too young when he went on Crusade to grow either, and in Ahmedhassa, he’d gone clean-shaven. ‘You’ll have no problem – you have a pelt just like Father,’ he told Valdyr, trying to raise a smile. Having a pelt was considered a masculine virtue in bitterly cold Mollachia.

  Valdyr’s face remained dour. ‘You wrote to Father – when?’

  ‘At the end of last year. He was well, but he spoke of tax debts.’ Kyrik glanced towards the hold, where a small chest of bullion was secreted among his possessions. ‘Paruq’s given me money to help—’

  ‘Why would a Keshi give you money?’ Valdyr demanded.

  ‘It’s just a gift, nothing more, from one friend to another.’

  Valdyr glowered at the Godspeaker, who was leading prayers for three of the crew while the pilot-girl cooked. ‘What did you do when you were taken from the breeding-house?’

  ‘Mostly, I learned. Paruq is a Godspeaker, welcome wherever he goes – so I was taken to Shaliyah and shown their holy places. He’s taken me all over the East. He wanted me and the other Yurosi whose release he’d secured to be a bridge between East and West. He persuaded his superiors that there were benefits in giving a select group of Yurosi prisoners – those with influence in their homelands – an understanding of Eastern ways, so that when we returned to Yuros, we could speak against the Crusades. All the others have long since returned. I stayed on, looking for you.’

  Valdyr looked up at him, his face haunted. ‘Never trust them, Brother – especially not their filthy priests. I know what they’re like when they get their claws into—’ Suddenly Valdyr’s mouth snapped shut; he hurled his chicken bone in the fire and stomped away.

  Kyrik stared after him, thinking, Did he just admit—? Oh Hel . . .

  The Bunavian Gap, Yuros

  Febreux 935

  The wind-dhou dropped through swirling clouds, lashed by a fierce northeasterly. The crew were hauling in the sails while Kyrik helped the pilot-mage adjust the tiller. The exhausted girl seemed to regard him as some kind of demi-god just for helping her. Her eyes were glazed and she was trembling constantly, but she still brought the craft down with practised skill.

  Poor thing, how does she live like this? Arguing her rights had been fruitless: she was a woman and her place was to serve, according to the captain.

  Even a few hundred feet above the ground, visibility was poor, just snatches of bare plains and an occasional tantalising glimpse of herds of horses. They were a week out of Pontus and had bypassed all the major cities of Verelon as they followed the Imperial Road into the west. Thantis, Cypinos and Spinitius were all behind them, as was Dusheim, westernmost of the Rondian fortress-cities. At the head of the Brekaellen Valley they tacked north against the prevailing winds. Kyrik was vaguely stunned that a Keshi windship could travel so freely in Yuros, but Paruq appeared to be right: as far as the Rondian Empire were concerned, there was nothing out here.

  Then the dhou dropped below the clouds, and he caught his breath. They were above a vast Sydian camp, a city of painted tents. Huge pens of horses and cattle fringed the sea of canvas and leather. Gaggles of children sprinted this way and that, and the stench of smoke and waste hit him. Eerily, the wail of a Godsinger carried across the scene, coming from a stone cairn wound about in long white ribbons: a makeshift dom-al’Ahm.

  Valdyr mouthed a curse, while Kyrik glanced toward Paruq. The Keshi have sent missionaries into Sydia! Should I rejoice that some savages have found a faith? Or should I be deeply uneasy?

  Right now, he was somewhere between the two, especially when Valdyr turned to him and said, ‘This is the beginning of the next great war.’

  ‘It’s just one tribe,’ he countered. ‘It may be the only one.’

  ‘Really?’ Valdyr stared coldly at Paruq and stomped to the other end of the dhou.

  Kyrik was about to follow when he saw Paruq shake his head. He joined his mentor as the dhou extended its landing legs. ‘You should have warned us – this is a shock, even to me. Amteh missionaries in Sydia?’

  ‘If I’d left you in Pontus, you’d have had months on the road, and many dangers to face. Here, you are only a few weeks’ ride from your borders. The other side of that coin is that you see our work here: peaceful missionary work.’

  ‘If the Rondians knew of this . . .’

  ‘Kore missionaries have been working the border tribes for centuries. Their skulls are usually mounted on spears to mark hunting territories.’ Paruq patted his arm. ‘We’ve lost a few ourselves, but the message of the Kalistham seems to resonate more here than the Book of Kore.’

  ‘Which parts?’

  Paruq smiled wryly. ‘The Book of Kore describes Sydians as “the embodiment of bestial savagery”. Those passages never go down well out here.’

  ‘I can’t imagine the Kore missionaries use them—’

  ‘They don’t – but we do. I’ve read the Book of Kore cover to cover. Know your enemy, Kyrik.’

  ‘But Sydians? They screw publicly for entertainment! They keep slaves and marry multiple wives! They worship animal gods! They’re insane!’

  ‘Well, they’re easing back on drinking and public fornication in return for better steel.’

  ‘You were always a realistic idealist,’ Kyrik replied, ‘but they’ve been killing themselves with liquid poison while screwing in front of the campfires since the beginning of time. They’ll never accept the Amteh – although I guess you’re right: they’ll always accept a better sword.’

  ‘A good missionary knows what is solid and what is mutable. We’ve been converting heathens in Gatioch and Mirobez for centuries and believe me, the Sydians are gentle compared to them. And you know, getting rid of the public sexuality was the easy part,’ Paruq chuckled. ‘It turns out all a man really wants is to not have his penis size made public knowledge.’

  Kyrik smiled at that, but it didn’t erase his worry. As the dhou touched down, it was swamped by a sea of Sydian clansmen and women. While the men still wore the dun leathers he’d seen when he’d travelled east all those years ago, he saw that many of the women now favoured a colourful mantle that covered everything except the face.

  Like a Keshi bekira-shroud, only in traditional colours and patterns.

  The Sydians touched the windcraft reverently, until they saw the Mollachs. They started crying, ‘Rondian! Rondi
an!’ There was no welcome in the call.

  Then the ramp was lowered and Paruq appeared at the top of it. The brothers watched uneasily as the tribesmen dropped to their knees, a wave of reverence extending into the middle distance, then they all stood expectantly.

  Paruq recited a greeting in Sydian, and much to Kyrik’s surprise, it was possible to follow it – there were many similarities to Mollach in the structure and linking words, and many nouns. It was a statement of greeting and introduction, then the Godspeaker turned to Kyrik and gestured for him to come forward. The Sydians stared up at him, then a grizzled Sydian warrior with bones in his braided hair and his bare chest painted with black and scarlet paste, bellowed out in Rondian, ‘Why you bring pigs? Is they slave?’

  ‘No, Nacelnik Thraan. This is no slave: this man is my friend.’

  ‘Nacelnik?’ Kyrik noted: another shared word, meaning ‘headman’ in Mollachia too.

  ‘How can Rondian be friend to Amteh priest?’ Thraan shouted.

  ‘Not Rondian,’ Paruq replied. ‘This is Prince Kyrik Sarkany of Mollachia.’

  ‘Mollach?’ Thraan beetled his brow, then nodded slowly. ‘Mollach is better. Mollach good.’

  Mollachia had never been a password to acceptance in Kyrik’s experience, but here somehow it was. Paruq led them down the ramp and they were engulfed by the crowds. The Sydians didn’t do a lot of formality, just a mutual drop of the head and a hand-clasp. Thraan’s giant paws were so leathery they felt like gauntlets.

  ‘Welcome, Prince of Mollach,’ the chief rumbled, and when they were eye to eye, he solemnly kissed both of Kyrik’s cheeks. His breath was overpoweringly strong, as was his sour sweaty odour, like a great shaggy bear, but his eyes were clear and vigilant.

  Kyrik was scared his brittle younger brother would misstep; Valdyr had a nervous air to him, despite towering above all but the biggest of the Sydian warriors. But he permitted Thraan’s embrace with outward equanimity.

  Then Thraan clapped Kyrik on the shoulder and said, ‘Come, let us drink!’