'Please.' Lena Gorsal raised her voice above the fear. 'I know you. We have taken bread and wine together, Sentor Rensaark. You are not an evil man. Don't do this. You mustn't.'
'It's too late, Lena,' said Rensaark. 'I warned you. I have begged you in years gone by. But you have proved deaf to my words. Now, I do what I must.'
'The Conquord will provide!' shouted the Reader, voice clear and unwavering. 'God will protect you all. His—'
A Tsardon fist thumped into his gut and he doubled over. He was forced to his knees, his head pushed forward to face the ground.
'You cannot silence me.' The Reader's voice was choked with pain and dust. 'Join me in prayer: Under the skies and above the soil; across the waves and on the mountain's peak, we bask in the glory of your creation . . .'
A few muttered voices joined the prayer. Rensaark strode to the kneeling man and lashed a kick into his face. A spray of blood flew and the prayer was halted. At a nod the Reader was hauled back to his feet. The Tsardon grabbed his bloodied mouth in one gloved hand.
'Let your God save you. If he is able.'
Another nod. Four raiders carrying torches ran into the House of Masks. Han froze. Quickly, the flames sprang up, feasting on the drapes, tapestries and wooden racks that held the masks of the recent dead. The raiders retreated. Fire spread upwards into the rafters. Smoke began to billow from the top of the doorway. Han saw the Reader mouthing a silent prayer against the desecration.
A third nod. The Reader was bundled towards the gathering inferno. He made no attempt to struggle and his words once again rang out across the prayer grass.
'Forgive those who destroy because they are blind to your light and mercy. Save those who stand in your presence. Though I go to the devils in the wind, my ashes denying me the warmth of your returning embrace, I go knowing your strength will guide those who yet live.'
He was shoved inside and the door pulled shut. A spear was pushed through the handle and braced against the door frame. People were screaming and shouting in the crowd. Gorsal led a movement forward but the riders pressed in from the sides, forcing the citizens back hard.
The roar of the flames was muted within the windowless building. Han could hear the Reader shouting his prayers through the coughs that racked his body. There was no attempt to escape. The door didn't thud in its frame, there was no beating on the walls.
Han joined with other citizens, praying for the Reader who was being stolen from God, never to return to the earth. With their tears staining their cheeks, they prayed until the Reader's shouts became choking screams torn from his lips and, mercifully soon, stopped altogether.
There was silence among the citizenry, against the backdrop of crackling flames and the shifting of horses.
'That was unforgivable, Senior,' said Gorsal when the Tsardon faced them once more. 'That man was not your enemy. We are not your enemies.' Her voice was thick with emotion.
Jesson nodded his agreement, helpless anger boiling through him.
'Any who live by choice under the banner of the Estorean Conquord are our enemies,' said Rensaark. 'All of your lives are forfeit. It is fortunate that we are more merciful than your own rulers who even now are butchering their way through settlements just like this. Settlements full of my people who want nothing but peace and the freedom to live in the Kingdom of Tsard.'
Rensaark turned and made a circling movement with his finger. A dozen Tsardon ran into the citizens, curved swords drawn and held before them. The crowd fell back. The raiders moved through, pushing them into rough ranks, daring them to move further than demanded.
'Your Reader has discovered the price of worshipping a false God.
Now you will discover the price of bowing to Estorea. The price you pay for not heeding my words, Lena.'
It happened so quickly. From back and front they came, Tsardon walking among the ranks, counting. At every tenth they touched a citizen on the forehead and he or she was dragged from the crowd to stand in a ring of swordsmen. A sick sensation gripped Jesson. The counting neared him. The woman next to him was the tenth, dragged screaming from her husband, who begged to be taken in her place. He took a sword pommel on the back of the neck and fell to the ground, unmoving.
Jesson felt no relief. His head was full of the shouting of those taken from their loved ones, the exhortations for mercy and the pressure of the raiders in their midst, dealing out violent order. Twenty-nine citizens were corralled, fate in the hands of God, obscured by horseflesh, leather and steel.
'And though we hate the Conquord, that doesn't mean we cannot learn anything from it,' said Rensaark. He laughed, a chill sound that cut straight through Jesson to his heart.
Realisation was swift. Decimation. Jesson wanted to close his eyes but found he could not. One of those corralled was picked up bodily by six Tsardon. She bucked and screamed in their arms, her terror echoed by those that remained and those helpless but to witness.
They pinned her face down to the table, muscled arms clamped on her limbs, hips and back. Her head and neck protruded from the end of the table. Rensaark drew his sword, measured quickly and swung. The woman's head was cut clean away, her screams silenced, the blood sluicing. Her head rolled to lie in the grass, eyes open in the moment of death, staring at them, disbelieving.
Again the horses pressed in, denying the citizens space. The twenty-eight captured citizens pleaded and pushed but there were so many Tsardon, all armed and strong. More than a hundred must have been in the raiding party.
Jesson dropped his head and stared at his sandals while his body trembled and shook to the sound of every scream. The awful sounds of those knowing they were going to die. Calling on God, calling on their families, begging to be spared, cursing the Tsardon, cursing the Conquord, howling out words of love. He clenched his fists at the whisper of the sword, the sick whip of the cut and the dead thud of head on dry earth and grass.
He counted each one. Praying for them to find peace in the embrace of God and a return to a life spared of fear and blessed with peace and light. The count was tortuously slow. He found he was rocking back and forth on his feet, breathing in short gasps. All that kept him upright were the words he sent to God while the shivers ran the length of his body.
By the time it was done, he could barely think at all and the words of the Tsardon only just registered.
'You have had two warnings,' Rensaark said. 'There will not be a third.'
And with scarcely a sound, his men melted back into the night beyond the fires, leaving the survivors of Gull's Ford with nothing but the bodies that defiled their place of prayer; and the gruesome task of gathering and honouring the slaughtered.
Jesson dropped to his knees and found his hope had deserted him.
Chapter 9
844th cycle of God, 43rd day of Solasrise
11th year of the true Ascendancy
Kessian had organised a discreet watch kept on Bryn Marr since his reaction in the forge two days before and had decided to visit him to try and right his mind. Bryn had closed the forge after the Ascendants and the Echelon had left and hadn't opened it since. Instead, he'd spent the time in solitary, drunken introspection, either inside his house or, more worryingly, in one of the bars that bordered the forum. He hadn't said anything injudicious so far but a slip was inevitable. And there were too many merchants in town.
With Kessian came a woman destined to fulfil a pivotal role in the years to come if the Ascendants were to develop unhindered. Elsa Gueran was a Reader of the Order of Omniscience. She was its sole representative in Westfallen and the Echelon was eternally grateful for her posting and the influence of her predecessor in that posting.
Kessian had called for her at her simple, single-storey house next to the House of Masks at the western end of the bay. He was feeling the heat today. Solastro was in full glorious cry, and the wind was still. Without the mitigating breeze off the sea the temperature was high and stifling. In the town, business was sluggish, with people sitting under
shades to discuss deals or working bare-backed in the open. On the slopes above the town, animals sought tree and shrub cover where they could and farmers moved slowly across the shimmering landscape.
Elsa provided a shoulder on which to lean while Kessian's stick took the rest of his weight. He had worn his loosest tunic and sported a huge straw hat to guard his scalp and neck but was immediately damp with sweat.
‘I am feeling very old this morning,' he said as they walked through the forum, acknowledging the many greetings that came their way.
'That's because you are, Ardol,' replied Elsa, smiling at him. 'It's God's way of telling you that time's almost up.'
Elsa was forty-seven and beautiful. Like many of those dedicated to the service of the Order she had chosen celibacy, believing that she was already mother to every one of Westfallen's citizens through God. Black hair cascaded down her back, decorated with the occasional beaded braid. Her athletic figure was the envy of women half her age and her face, smiling and welcoming, held features sculpted almost to perfection by nature.
She was also deeply irreverent which, in her very difficult position, was a blessing and an enormous strength.
'There are some would have you burned for that stating of unpalatable reality,' Kessian said, chuckling.
'There are many things many would have me burned for if they knew what was going on here, Ardol. Telling you that you're not far from death is the least of my concerns, believe me.'
Her expression had sobered. Kessian patted the shoulder on which he leant.
'Not in your lifetime, eh?' he said.
Elsa shrugged. 'What's hard to take in is the reality. I've seen Mirron and now Arducius and I'm still not sure I really believe it.'
‘I suspect that's what lies at the heart of Bryn's problem,' said Kessian.
'Undoubtedly. It's hard to express for those of us who had no lasting talent. Or in my case, no talent at all.' She fell silent, trying to organise her thoughts.
Kessian noticed some particularly fine Tundarran weave on a nearby stall. Deep green and threaded in red and gold. Genna would love a yard or two of it.
'Special price for a poor old man?' suggested Kessian, pointing at the material.
'You have been using that line on me for a decade, Ardol,' said the stallholder, a tall, thin man approaching old age.
'And it becomes more true every time I speak it.'
'As do the threats of my contacts wondering why a cloth that comes so far is sold on for so little. For you as for everyone, it's a denarius a yard. Discount if you buy ten.'
Kessian blew out his cheeks, catching Elsa's mildly anxious gaze at the same time. 'I'll think about it. Maybe come back later when you're feeling more generous.'
'Will your good lady ever forgive you if she finds I sold out before you decided to treat her?'
'Will I ever forgive you if she finds I was even enquiring?' Kessian winked. He turned and rested his hand back on Elsa's shoulder. The two moved off slowly. 'I'm sorry, Elsa, you were about to say.'
'I believe in the true path of the Order. That's why I'm here. Because I can help keep the Chancellor's inquisitors clear of Westfallen. But like our belief in the cycle of life, the true Ascendant's path is just that, a belief. Or it was. There was no proof, not really. And now I'm confronted with it. It's like being in the presence of God. It scares me. I'm sure it scared Bryn too.'
'Don't let the Ascendants hear you say that. At least one of them already has enough delusions of his own impending greatness.' Kessian was only half-joking.
'Yes, it's something you'll have to watch,' agreed Elsa, not raising a smile. 'Look, Ardol, we're sitting on the best-kept secret in the Conquord, probably on the whole of God's earth. The Order still think they put an end to it all when they killed Gorian. You know better than all of us how hard it's been to keep it that way.
'What I've seen . . . dear God-of-the-world, there are others pregnant even now, with the same potential. It cannot remain a secret forever.'
'I know,' said Kessian. 'It's the main reason Marshal Vasselis is here.'
'I mean, these people are what we believe we should all be in generations to come.' Elsa paused, stared at him as they exited the forum on a quiet street heading towards the blacksmith's. 'Can you imagine what this is going to do to the Order? To the Conquord, for that matter?
'There will be no flags to herald their arrival. No ready acceptance. Dear Ardol, these people you've created, their fight has only just begun. You can't contain them here. What they are, real or imagined, will out. I am preparing for that. I suggest the Echelon does the same.'
'We are, Elsa. That's why I'm going to talk to Bryn now,' he said, though he felt his words woefully inadequate. 'But at the back of all our minds is the knowledge that we have been rather naive. All of us. You included. It's only now that we've truly started to appreciate the potential consequences of what we've done. Everything has been geared towards creation, precious little towards education. The Conquord is big and the Order is powerful and paranoid. It isn't going to be easy.'
'Ardol Kessian, your gift for understatement is undimmed by age.'
The forge was cold, the house quiet and shuttered. Disgruntled customers had tacked notes to his door and there was evidence that pieces had been removed from the yard. Theft or recovery of property, it was impossible to say.
Kessian rapped sharply on the heavy door with his stick, not expecting nor getting a response. The streets in this part of Westfallen were quiet but narrow, the forge being on a crossroads. Terraced houses, most atop businesses of one kind or another, meandered away in curving cobbled streets. In the heat of the morning, most of those doing business were inside but in a small town it was easy to draw attention.
He looked at Elsa who shrugged. 'What choice do we really have? The whole town knows he's involved in the Ascendancy programme. We were bound to come. But remember why we're here, Ardol. We have to stop him making a mistake while the festival is on or news will reach the Conquord uncontrolled.'
Kessian nodded. 'You know we're going to have to tell the town very soon, don't you? They must suspect already that there's been a breakthrough.'
'Yes but in the way we always said we would. One thing at a time, Ardol.'
Elsa thumped her fist on the door, Kessian with his stick again.
'Bryn!' shouted Kessian. 'Open the door. We're here to help you. It's Ardol and Elsa. Come on now.'
He glanced around him. Faces were already appearing at doorways. He waved them away and struck the door again.
'Bryn, come on out. We don't want to have to call the militia to break in to check you're still alive.'
'You're sure he's in there?' asked Elsa.
'Unless he dug a tunnel last night,' said Kessian.
'Or his own grave,' said Elsa.
'That isn't funny.'
'It wasn't meant to be.'
Kessian put his stick to the door once more. 'Bryn! Last chance.' He waited, and eventually shook his head. 'I don't think . . .'
The sound of a bolt being slid back stopped his words. The door opened a crack.
'Can't a man have a little solitude if he wants?' growled Bryn.
They heard him walk away back into his house. Kessian pushed open the door into the gloom. Every shutter was closed. Stale air drifted out along with a sour smell. He shrugged and walked in and up the short hallway that led to Bryn's reception and dining room. Empty wine jugs, goblets and plates were scattered about the floor, side tables and couches.
Beyond the dining room, the kitchen was off a short passageway to the right. To the left, stairs led up to a bedroom. The forge and yard were through the kitchen but they didn't have to go that far. Bryn was sitting at the work table, his back to his cold stove, staring into space. He was carrying the dirt of three days. He was unwashed, unshaven and his hair was lank on his head. His eyes were red from alcohol and lack of sleep and his hands were shaking the goblet he held in front of him. More jugs stood or lay in a rou
gh arc in front of him. Bryn had always enjoyed his wine. It looked like he had consumed the better part of his cellar.
'Do you mind if I sit down?' asked Kessian already pulling back a chair.
Bryn made a small gesture of acquiescence. Kessian sat hard and puffed out his cheeks, leaning his stick against the edge of the table. Elsa stood at his side, a hand resting on his shoulder. Close to, Bryn stank of sweat, vomit and stale alcohol.
'We just want to talk to you,' said Elsa. 'See if you're all right.'
'Well, now you've seen me you can go,' said Bryn. 'Don't worry, I won't give away your precious secret.'
He didn't look at them but had fixed his gaze instead on the goblet that he rolled between his filthy fingers.
'It's your secret too, Bryn. It's all of ours. Everyone in Westfallen,' said Kessian.
'Look, we know you're scared,' said Elsa.
'Scared?' Now he faced them, red eyes wide and wild in his deeply tanned, weathered face. 'No, I'm not scared. I have too much regret and despair to be scared. No point in being frightened now we've produced this unconscionable evil.'
Kessian felt sadness tumble through him like a fall of ice. He shook his head, his heart reaching out to his troubled friend.
'Bryn, no. Can it be evil to bring new life into the world that is more closely bonded to all God's creations than any before it?'
'It cannot be right,' said Bryn, his voice a hoarse whisper. 'What have we done?'
'We have brought new understanding to the world,' said Kessian. 'We have taken human beings to the next plane. Closer to God. Better able to do the Omniscient's work. It is a natural progression.'
Bryn snorted. 'Natural. That girl held flame in her hands. It did her bidding.'
'There would be those who say all strand talents, innate or otherwise, are unnatural. You were a Firewalker in your youth, after all. Are you unnatural?'
'God bestows such talents,' said Bryn icily. 'And God removes them too. They are the natural order of things. But this? We have bred for this. It is not nature's course. It is against God.'
Cry of the Newborn Page 10
