Empress of the Fall

by David Hair

  Brylion’s scarred face lit up and he pounded his right fist against his breastplate. ‘As you command, Uncle.’

  And so it begins. I pray our children will bless this day. Garod turned back to the servants. He knew all their names and faces, as he’d known the dead woman in the tiny room behind him. Some had been in service since before 909, like Jonas, his footman, who’d been with him since childhood. He’d trusted them with his life, the dark intimate places only family went.

  ‘Jonas,’ he called, and the old man raised his head hopefully. ‘Pack my travel chest: I have an important journey to make.’

  The old man bobbed his head gratefully and shuffled off to Garod’s room. The duke surveyed the rest, then whispered, ‘Jonas I trust. Give the rest merciful, discreet deaths.’ He walked away. He’d seen enough blood for one day.

  *

  The Bastion, Pallas, Yuros

  Lyra plodded heavily through her private garden, making her way slowly to the trickle of water from the fountain where her sapling Winter Tree grew. It was the sixth month of her pregnancy and her belly was well beyond her breasts now, her gait changing as the weight of her growing child shifted her balance. Domara had consented to giving her healing-gnosis on her back, though she was far less skilled than Ostevan. She missed his touch, but she knew outsiders would not approve, so they had reverted to more traditional lady-and-confessor relations. Those conversations were still one of the best parts of her day.

  Despite the discomfort of her condition, there were consolations. Her marriage felt renewed, though it was harder to feel amorous in this condition. Ril understood though, and he was still attentive. Best of all, Domara had declared the danger of miscarriage over, and her child’s movements brought tears of joy to her eyes.

  My baby is going to live – thank you, Kore; preserve us, Corineus!

  It was dusk, and she’d used a headache as an excuse to get some time alone – a relative term, when Basia waited at the gates of the garden, her watchful gaze following her charge through the twilight. The moon was rising – the merest sliver; tomorrow Junesse would enter Darkmoon: six days of empty sky, when the dead were said to walk and daemons could step into the material world. Setallius assured her that was nonsense.

  She broke through the maze of the wild roses and dreamily passed the Oak Grove into the circle of elms around the pond and the Winter Tree sapling. The young tree was thickening, but its strange counter-seasonal cycle meant its leaves were turning gold and beginning to fall. In the darkening garden, the tree’s pale splendour filled her with peace.

  She knelt awkwardly beside the pool that fed its roots, reaching over the old moss-covered stones and dipping her fingers into the cold water, then raising them to the skies in offering to Aradea. A silvery lustre gathered in the droplets running down her arm as she whispered a wish, that her child be blessed and protected. It had become her daily ritual.

  ‘Aradea, watch over what is mine.’ She saw no irony in praying to both Kore and the Queen of the Fey. Both were real to her. She finished by touching the wet hand to her forehead, and a sense of regard shafted through her awareness. She blinked her eyes open and for a moment was sure there was a vast face, formed by the autumnal leaves, staring down at her. She felt no sense of threat, only of being noticed.

  Then the wind shook the boughs and the moment was gone. She smiled quietly to herself, feeling a precious, fleeting tranquillity as she filled her silver jug. The water from this fountain was the nicest she’d ever tasted, and she was certain it had some virtue for her and her unborn child.

  Then footsteps thudded and Ril ran into the garden, alarm on his face. ‘Lyra? What was that light?’

  She hadn’t been conscious of any light. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘A faint greenish light, sylvan-gnosis perhaps, and I was worried . . .’

  She let him enfold her, touched by a fond warmth. Ril was worried, she thought, basking in his protective bulk. ‘It was the dwyma,’ she told him. ‘It touched me.’

  ‘Should you be using it, in your condition?’

  She rested her head against his chest. ‘Typical mage: “using it” you say, as if it were a handy tool, like your gnosis. It touched me, not the other way around.’

  ‘Whatever – Domara would have a fit if she knew.’

  ‘Then don’t tell her.’ The dwyma was a secret known only by those closest to her: Ril, Basia, Dirklan – and Ostevan, though she’d not told the others she’d confessed her heresy during yesterday’s Unburdening. As always, Ostevan – bless him – had taken the revelation in his stride, and sworn secrecy over it.

  Ril kissed the top of her head. ‘It’s a beautiful garden, anyway. Very private.’ He gave a wicked chuckle and slid one arm up to cradle her breasts. ‘Don’t the Sollans like to strip off and dance under the full moon?’

  She slapped his hand away playfully. ‘Not in this place . . . it wouldn’t be right. Not here. Sometimes I feel Saint Eloy is watching me here.’

  ‘Kore’s Blood,’ Ril muttered, ‘first Fey Queens, now Ghostly Hermits. It’s getting crowded in here.’ He shivered. ‘Let’s go in, it’s getting cold. I’ve sent Fantoche off to get a bite. I told her I’d help you undress tonight.’

  He’d been sleeping with her more and more often. Their marriage was finally maturing into what she’d thought it would be. He was warmer now, less flighty. Sometimes love takes time, Ostevan often said – five years was a long time, but: Love is patient. That was from the Book of Kore.

  ‘I’ve been reading something Setallius gave me,’ she told Ril, looking up at the sliver moon through the branches. ‘The writer says our world exists in a middle place, a world of perfect harmony between ice and fire, land and sky. Remove one, and the other will destroy us.’

  ‘Sounds true enough.’

  ‘He also says that dwyma was created at the same time as the gnosis – that one is the counter-balance to the other.’

  ‘But dwyma is basically extinct,’ he pointed out. ‘There’s only you.’

  ‘Do you think so? When groves like this are dotted all over the empire, and some nights I can almost hear the man who preserved them talking to me?’

  ‘Ha! Sounds like a rich-food dream.’ He stroked her belly mischievously. ‘You should cut back: you’re getting fat.’

  ‘Cheeky! The phrase you’re looking for is “big with child”.’ She felt a surge of confidence and twisted in his grip to kiss him, and that seemed to melt another tiny layer of separation. She felt so close to him. Our love is alive and growing, like my garden.

  Then the narrow crescent moon fell behind a cloud and the wind grew cooler, chilling her skin. She huddled closer to him. ‘Take me upstairs. I’m hungry – not for food, though.’

  Ril chuckled deep in his throat and kissed her again, more hungrily. ‘As my Lady commands.’ Then he paused. ‘What’s that?’ He pointed to a mossy old stone: one of those from the border of the pool.

  ‘I must have dislodged it,’ she said, though she didn’t remember doing so. She was puzzled to see him distracted; the prospect of lovemaking usually made him quite single-minded.

  He picked it up and frowned. There was a pattern carved into its surface: a tree, and crossed keys. ‘Look, I’ve seen this before, somewhere . . . Is it something to do with Saint Eloy, d’you think?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so – until I planted my sapling, this garden had nothing to do with him. Dirklan will know: ask him tomorrow – you’re busy, right now.’

  ‘But where . . .?’ he muttered. He bent and wedged it back into the border of stones, then threw her a grin and they walked hand in hand through the garden and back up the stairs to her suite. Geni was dismissed, most of the candles extinguished and they slipped between the silken sheets to tend this new spark and to make it grow.

  An hour later, Ril jerked awake and sat up. Lyra rolled over blearily, wincing as the weight in her belly shifted. ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘That sigil, on the stone – I kno
w where I saw it: at Saint Chalfon’s, in Surrid.’ His fine-chiselled bronze face was lit with concentration. ‘There was a plaque – I saw it when I knelt.’

  She looked up at him and yawned. ‘I’m glad you’ve remembered – maybe you can sleep now?’

  He hesitated, then said, ‘I’ll talk to Setallius in the morning.’

  *

  ‘Cordan?’ Coramore whispered timidly as the lock clicked. The sound resonated dully. The only thing she was sure of was that they were underground. She’d been left alone for so long, it felt like years: a year of shrieking angrily for help, then a year of broken weeping, that she – the Princess of the World – could be so treated. Then another year of empty waiting. Food and water was left and her waste bucket changed, always while she slept – how did they know? The stone walls were smooth and dry; the air was stale but vented in through a grille above the door. Another year of bored fidgeting passed, lying on the hard mattress counting the bricks in the ceiling, and another year of tears.

  ‘Cordan?’ she called hopefully, but it wasn’t her brother. It was one of her ‘rescuers’ – if this was rescue. The woman wearing the Lantric mask was robed in deep green velvets, with matching gloves: Tear, the soul of Tragedy.

  I’ll make your life a damned tragedy when I’m out of here, she promised herself silently as she glowered at the newcomer. ‘What do you want? Where’s Cordan?’ she demanded, trying to hide her fear behind anger.

  ‘He’s safe,’ Tear replied. The mask did strange things to her voice, a metallic echo that was slithery and unpleasant. ‘The less you know the better, Princess.’

  ‘I want to see him!’

  ‘Soon,’ Tear told her. She sat on the bed – her bed – staring at her through that menacing bronze-and-lacquer mask. The mask’s tears looked like real blood, they were so perfectly rendered. ‘Soon you’ll be rewarded for all your patience.’

  ‘It’s not good enough,’ Coramore told the masked woman, trembling in rage.

  ‘You have no gnosis yet,’ Tear mused, ignoring her complaint. ‘But the potential might be enough, combined with the ichor, to trigger something . . .?’

  Coramore didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. But she was afraid to ask for an explanation.

  Tear fell silent, staring at her for so long Coramore wanted to scream. Abruptly the masked woman asked, ‘What would you like to do to Lyra and her husband?’

  ‘Them?’ she spat. ‘We’re going to lop off their heads and put them on spikes for the world to see.’ Cordan liked to say such things, and in her imagination it sounded rather splendid.

  ‘You’ll do this yourself?’ Tear sounded amused.

  ‘Cordan will do it. It’s his right.’

  Her eyes narrowed inside the mask and the air grew cold. ‘Come here, Coramore.’

  The girl sensed the mood change and it was as if someone had shown her an hourglass containing the sands of her life, and most had already fallen. Suddenly, she was very afraid. ‘I can’t,’ she whimpered. ‘I’m only twelve.’

  ‘Come here.’

  ‘No.’ She retreated until her back hit the wall. Tears stung her eyes. Something bad was going to happen, something awful. ‘Cordan – Cordan!’ she screamed.

  ‘Come here.’

  ‘No!’ She fell to her knees. ‘Leave me alone, please – I’m just a little girl – I want my brother—!’

  ‘Come here.’

  By now, that horrible voice wasn’t one she dared disobey. ‘What do you want?’ Coramore begged, as she shuffled towards the masked woman.

  Tear lifted her mask, and she recognised her: one of the court ladies, that gaggle of nobodies who clung to the powerful like ticks. Then the unmasked woman bared ivory teeth like small knives, snake and wolf in one, and Coramore tried to scream, but Tear had already wrenched her head sideways and she was lost in a blaze of agony as those terrifying incisors punctured skin. Her legs gave way.

  What rose from the floor some time later wasn’t her any more – though it remembered that once it had been.

  ‘Come,’ Tear told her. ‘Outside, tomorrow is the first day of Darkmoon, the last day of the usurper. We have work to do if our so-called Empress is to fall.’

  ‘The Empress of the Fall, she won’t last at all,’ not-Coramore sing-songed, her eyes dripping blood. She took Tear’s hand and they left the light, and walked into the waiting darkness.

  34

  Draug-Witch

  Sorcery: Necromancy

  The Codex Arcanum, the laws governing gnostic workings, has more pages governing necromancy than all of the other crafts combined. It is the most maligned and misunderstood power of the magi, and the most feared. Yet the peace in communing with a lost loved one is worth any price to the bereaved, and that is the gift I bring.

  CRAELIA LYNDRETHUSE, ARGUNDIAN NECROMANCER, 842

  Hebusalim, Dhassa

  Akhira (Junesse) 935

  Tarita had never seen a human draug – a walking corpse – before. Merozain training did include the theory on how to destroy an animated corpse, but they used dead lizards for practise, which was unpleasant enough. But as she realised what she faced, appalled at seeing the visage of someone she’d known and admired, all theory went out the window.

  Sakita Mubarak’s face had collapsed, her grey, desiccated skin sunk into the skull, and she walked with joint-cracking stiffness. Her aura was a tell-tale pale violet and her dry-rot stink sucked the air from the vast chamber. Only her eyes retained lustre as her piercing gaze stabbed at Tarita.

  ‘Nakti,’ Sakita rasped, raising a claw-like hand, ‘why are you here?’ Her voice was nothing like what it had been in life; it was dull and sullen, resentful. Tarita backed away, conscious that Odessa would be closing in behind. If she was to get out of this, she needed to make use of her full array of gnosis: so if necromancy was where Earth and Sorcery intersected, she needed the opposite: Thaumaturgy and Air: which meant flight.

  Run like Hel, in other words, she thought, wrenching herself free of Sakita’s lunging kinesis-grip and diving sideways between two tombs. She poured out illusory darkness to mask her; then sent that darkness one way while darting another, terrified that at any moment one of those hunting her would appear above. She found a niche and melted into it, trying not to breathe.

  Ten seconds – a lifetime – passed, then she heard Heartface – Odessa D’Ark or whoever it really was – closing in, her shoes tapping crisply on the tiles. She glimpsed the masked face, framed by the flowing mane of blonde hair, as she sashayed past her crawl-space, and in a few seconds, she heard a frustrated sigh. She’d managed to elude her, for now, but Tarita had only a vague idea of where her pursuers were. And her cut cheek refused to bleed; when she touched it, the rent flesh felt scaly . . . dead.

  Sakita’s corpse-voice scratched through the darkness. ‘Who are you, Nakti? You’re no healer. Your aura is like those accursed Merozains . . . Are you one of them?’

  Tarita couldn’t stop herself wondering how she’d fallen into this trap. Her sealed note to Odessa had been given to Gianna, who was supposed to give it to Odessa’s secretary to pass it to Odessa: so at least one of those three was a traitor to the Order – though she couldn’t imagine Gianni being part of this masked group. If these masked magi could use any of the affinities, then that might not have been the real Odessa who’d met her today . . . but equally, she could also be the real Odessa D’Ark.

  And how is it that Sakita’s here, and like this? It was the Ordo Costruo who took her body away . . . She thought of Waqar; it would destroy him if he knew. And why is his sister Jehana so important?

  This wasn’t the time to ponder these problems. There was no one close she could reliably call for help, and anyway, the energy flash of a gnostic call would instantly betray her position. She’d have to get out of this on her own. So she crept sideways, her aura tamped down to a wisp and wrapped in illusion. Two on one was too many, and these women had decades of experience she didn’t have. Sh
e ought to be a match for them in raw power, but in skill they were likely far deadlier.

  She’d been a servant most of her sixteen years, though, and she was no stranger to being on knees and haunches in places that finer people wouldn’t even think to go. So she took to the cobwebbed corners and narrow spaces of the giant mausoleum, squeezing between mildewed walls and old tombs, crawling noiselessly through the rat- and gecko-droppings while her hunters stalked the wide aisles, occasionally sending bursts of fire washing down, seeking to flush her out. Then Heartface took to the air, floating erect above the tombs, her dress rippling as she passed, necromantic-gnosis still sparkling in her hands. Tarita pressed herself to the far side of an ornate sarcophagus and waited until she’d passed, then she crept across to the next aisle and risked peering out, checking left and right.

  The entrance she was making for shimmered with a gnostic barrier: such spells took time to dismantle, more than she’d have. The other doors would be similarly warded, she was sure . . . but she was a servant. She scanned the vast chamber, thinking like a cleaner: those who did the drudge work were always given discreet ways to come and go so they didn’t offend the nobility with their presence. She picked a direction and melted through the darkness. Heartface was at the far end, but dead-Sakita could be anywhere; so she’d have to trust to fortune, because she couldn’t hide for ever. She reached the main aisle and flitted across, making for a place where the shape of the ceiling indicated a recess, praying she was right.

  And there it was: a small wooden door, deep in the shadows and cunningly disguised by the architecture: her escape route. She shimmied towards it, using all her skill and patience. I have to get out – and then I have to warn someone about this . . .

  She’d almost reached the door when Sakita Mubarak stepped from the shadows, barely ten feet away. Tarita froze as a rictus-grin spread across the dead woman’s decayed face. ‘Nakti,’ the draug breathed.

  That continued ignorance of her real name gave Tarita hope and she stalled, trying to position herself for a lunge at the door. Heartface was doubtless on the way. ‘You can’t be Sakita – she’s dead,’ she called.