The glimmer of hope Hero’s mother had shown flared into luminous joy. ‘I would like that,’ she said. ‘I would like that very much.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A BOOK OF DIVINATIONS
WHEN he wasn’t training, Joss studied. Every evening, no matter how tired he was, he committed at least an hour to reading the books he’d taken from Zeke. There was little of interest to him in The Magna Grimoire or Rodda’s Index of Esoterica. But History of the Occult was another matter. Joss found it so full of detail that he started taking notes to ensure he didn’t forget anything. He wondered what his parents would make of him combining their mutual passions for academia and the arcane as he scrawled out entries on the Shadowkeeper of Lucium and the Necromancer Cult of the Constellation Islands. Even the Stitched Witch warranted a mention, though the details on her were sparse.
The greatest clue he found came from an illustration of what he first took to be a set of fangs. They were wrought in silver on a black shield, forming a macabre coat-of-arms, or the most imposing paladero sigil he’d ever seen. It was only as he read the caption that he came to realise that these weren’t fangs, but a crown that had been turned upside down.
Dubbed the Crest of the Unhallowed – though also referred to as the Midnight Crown and the Sigil of Shadows – it had been a popular symbol in spellbinding ceremonies that called upon the Shadow God to show his favour. The last place it had turned up outside of academic texts was at an archaeological dig at the gates of Vaal, over fifty years ago.
That troubling discovery seemed unconnected, however, to the revelation made in the next chapter of the handful of fanatics who had gone to their deaths warning of the imminent arrival of a dark entity that would lay waste to all unbelievers. The fact that these warnings had come over a century ago made it obvious that this ‘imminent arrival’ had been indefinitely postponed.
As he read on, Joss came to see that these cases had been mostly isolated incidents. There appeared to be no connection between these eccentric historical figures and some greater purpose they were united in serving. In short, there was no conspiracy uncovered in the pages he read, no revelation of an imminent threat, no Shadow God to thwart.
Relieved, disappointed, foolish; Joss didn’t know how to feel. His mind was scattered with a thousand different thoughts, confused by the contradictions among them. But there was one person he knew who might be able to help him make order of the chaos, and now he had the ability to reach her. Retrieving his Scryer from its hiding place, he set off across the fortress grounds and found the illumivox machine exactly where Hero had said it was, in a small chamber that neighboured the fortress’s barracks.
The apparatus was half-hidden by a privacy screen. What little of it could be seen resembled an ornate sculpture that had been welded together from brass band instruments, an electric organ and a glass fishbowl.
Joss sat on the padded chair in front of the elaborate contraption and placed the Scryer in the input slot. Selecting the desired call-sign from an exceedingly short list of contacts, he thumbed the transmission switch and watched as the illumivox thrummed and blinked, awaiting a response. It came sooner than he expected, with a face shimmering into existence within the glass bowl.
Qorza looked just as Joss remembered her from the deck of the Behemoth, her eyes flashing brilliantly behind wire-rimmed spectacles, her shaved head sporting a jaunty bandana. Only the hue of her skin was different, rendered a very dark grey by the illumivox’s projector.
‘Josiah!’ she greeted him with delighted surprise.
‘Hello, Qorza,’ he said with a shy smile. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
‘You as well! It’s been too long.’
‘It would have been sooner if they’d had an illumivox at Starlight Fields. Too much atmospheric influence to get a signal out, I was told. But it’s a different story here at Blade’s Edge Acres.’
‘Already onto the next leg of your training, then? That’s good news.’
‘I wish it was as simple as that,’ Joss replied, and the pixelated projection of Qorza’s face flickered.
‘How do you mean?’ she asked.
Joss checked over his shoulder, then leaned forward to whisper into the illumivox’s microphone. ‘What do you know about the Shadow God?’
‘The Shadow God?’ Qorza said, a little too loud for Joss’s liking. ‘An obscure deity, worshipped by obsolete cults. If my memory serves, that is. Why do you ask?’
Joss cleared his throat. ‘Well … with everything that happened in Daheed and everything we talked about afterwards, I don’t think I properly explained. Ichor and his men, and their leader Thrall, were all worshippers of what they called their Shadow God. It all seemed like madness at the time, but ever since you and I parted ways in Stormport it’s been playing on my mind more and more. Especially with how it might relate to the Rakashi Revelations …’
‘Aha!’ Qorza said, her hand shooting up like an exclamation mark. ‘Now there’s something on which I can shed a little light.’
‘Really?’ Joss said, shifting in his chair. The words of the prophecy his mother had been translating echoed loud and clear in his head once more:
From beyond silver seas, from out of blue skies, from the ruins of a lost life, there will come a galamor, with right hand marked by fate and carrying a vaartan rhazh. Only the galamor will stand when all else fall, and rise when all else kneel. Only the galamor can bring light to the oncoming darkness, and draw hope from a dying dream. Only the galamor, and the galamor alone.
They were words from which Joss had drawn strength. In which he’d placed his hope and even his ambition. But they were words that had remained a mystery. Until now, perhaps.
‘I’ve been doing some reading and making some notes,’ Qorza went on, holding up a scuffed diary so that Joss could see it in the monitor before perusing its pages. ‘The Rakashi were a nomadic tribe in the early days of the Kahnrani Empire who had a reputation as sorcerers and seers. People would journey for hundreds of leagues to have their fortunes told by the Rakashi, if they were lucky enough to find them among the red deserts and oasis-jungles of Kahnra’s eastern reaches.
‘When they weren’t performing these paid predictions, they would work on their own book of divinations, which they dubbed the Revelations. The prophecy in your mother’s journal looks to be only a fragment of the full text, which was lost to time after the Kahnrani emperor took a dislike to the soothsaying of the Rakashi and purged them all.’
‘Purged them?’ said Joss, and Qorza nodded.
‘There’s not a person alive today who draws ancestry from the Rakashi. Which is why translating their work is such a challenge. Your mother was recognised as an expert in the field, though there’s a handful of others whom I’ve reached out to in an effort to confirm the final words in the prophecy. I’m still waiting to hear back from them.
‘But Joss,’ Qorza’s tone shifted as she closed the book. ‘I don’t know how much cargo this carries. Even with the reputation the Rakashi had, the wording of this prophecy is so vague that it could apply to just about anything. Besides which: shadow gods? Promised ones? End-of-days doomsaying? All of this was bait and tackle for seers of old. There was more money and influence to be found in warning against thunder than there ever was in promising clear skies and smooth seas. Do you see what I’m saying?’
Before Joss could answer, the illumivox fell into dead silence and the monitor went blank.
‘Oops,’ someone said from behind the privacy screen. Leaning around it, Joss saw Lynch with the illumivox’s power cord in his hand, unplugged. ‘Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.’
For once, the sneering prentice was unaccompanied by his usual cohorts. Not that it seemed to concern him. He was staring Joss down with a savage brand of glee, even as Joss yanked his Scryer from the input slot and rose to confront him.
‘Lynch, you –!’ the insult was still hovering on Joss’s tongue as he caught sight of the black metal d
agger Lynch was holding beside his knee. It wasn’t his humming knife, which was sheathed on his belt much like Joss’s was, along with the Champion’s Blade. Hand twitching for the pommel of either weapon, Joss kept his eyes locked on his opponent and the nasty-looking blade he was now brandishing.
‘I wouldn’t go getting any ill-advised ideas if I were you,’ Lynch smirked. ‘Neither of those blades would be halfway clear of their scabbard before I gave this little monster a taste of what it thirsts for.’
‘What do you want, Lynch?’
‘Many things. Starting with my rightful place on the Way,’ he said, his little teeth peeking out from behind drawn lips.
‘You can try for that again next time,’ Joss told him.
‘And spend another two years toiling away in the muck and the hay? Where’s the justice in that? And what do I have left if it’s denied me again in favour of some other snotty brat?’
‘The face of someone who’s just stomped in a fresh load of muck while sucking on a rotten lemon?’
Lynch glowered. ‘Revenge. One of the greatest motivators there is. That’s what I got left,’ he said, raising his blade to hold it just inches from Joss’s face. ‘Storm’s coming, boy. You and your friends best prepare.’
‘Lynch?’ someone said from just beyond the chamber’s doorway. Joss didn’t have to look to know who it was.
‘Yes, Sur Blaek?’ Lynch said, spinning around. He was so swift in concealing his dagger that Joss didn’t even see it happen.
‘Don’t you have somewhere to be?’ Sur Blaek asked with a single arched eyebrow.
‘Yes, sur,’ Lynch replied, then whispered to Joss, ‘Next time you won’t be so lucky.’ He offered the paladero a respectful nod as he disappeared through the antechamber’s doorway.
Sur Blaek watched him leave, and mused out loud, ‘What a monstrous little creature he is.’
‘Sur?’ Joss said, shocked to hear a paladero of such esteem speak so candidly.
‘Bitter about being rejected for the Way, is he?’ Sur Blaek continued, lingering between the chamber and the hallway. ‘Though I suppose being let go as Rayner’s prentice wouldn’t have helped.’
‘Lynch is Rayner’s prentice?’ The revelation shouldn’t have surprised Joss as much as it did. After all, Pterosaurs of a breed share a creed, as he’d heard the local fieldservs say.
‘Was,’ said Sur Blaek. ‘But Rayner had him placed with another paladero upon being named lord.’
‘And Lynch resents him for it?’
‘You’d have to ask him that. Though he’s always struck me as a big believer in Sur Rayner and all he does.’
‘You mean Lord Rayner,’ Joss said.
Sur Blaek shook his head and expelled a single, dry laugh. ‘Of course. How could I forget?’
There was a distinct edge of disdain to Sur Blaek’s tone. Enough to fill Joss with the confidence to ask, ‘Do you think that’s likely to be the case for much longer?’
Sur Blaek scanned the hallway for eavesdroppers. ‘Have you ever heard of the Order of Tooth and Claw?’ he asked in a low voice.
Confused, Joss shook his head.
‘When one paladero wrongs another,’ Sur Blaek went on, ‘and the Grandmaster Council is unable or unwilling to act, there exists a secret society that will step in to ensure justice is done. They’re stationed throughout Thunder Realm and beyond, in positions both high and low. You just need to know the right people to speak with.’
‘And you’re speaking with them now?’ Joss asked, feeling cautiously optimistic.
‘That’s why I’m in need of the illumivox. If you’re finished with it, of course.’
Joss peered over his shoulder at the hulking contraption. Qorza would probably still be free to talk more, though it had sounded like she’d told him all she had to say. For now, at least. ‘It’s all yours,’ he said, standing aside.
‘Many thanks,’ the paladero said, striding towards the machine to plug it back in. ‘And Sarif?’
Joss stopped, and looked back at Sur Blaek.
‘I trust you’ll keep this to yourself?’
‘Of course,’ Joss replied.
‘Good lad,’ said Sur Blaek, and vanished behind the privacy screen.
Walking back to his chambers, Joss’s head felt even heavier than it had before. Sur Blaek and his Order of Tooth and Claw took up their fair share of space, as did Lynch and his ominous threats. But it was the thoughts of prophecy and black magic that still held the greatest sway over him, with the Rakashi Revelations having taken on such personal significance that it was hard to hear Qorza being so dismissive of all they foretold.
That heavy-headed feeling only grew stronger as he entered his sleeping cell to see the stack of library books on the table beside his bed. Sighing, he wondered if he should try combing through them again for some new crumb of information. Instead, his eyes zeroed in on the book at the bottom of the pile.
On Leather Wings, by Ichabod Boon. Deciding to give himself a break, he picked it up. He could see straight away why it was a favourite of Hero’s, beginning as it did with Sur Ichabod describing his childhood dreams of flight. Though Joss didn’t see how it offered any help in his troubles with Tempest – at least, not until he read the chapter where Boon, having flown to Tower Town to meet with the Grandmaster Council, was left stranded in the desert by an unexpected sandstorm that had blinded his pterosaur.
Joss reread the chapter three times, then snapped the book shut. It was near on midnight. As much he wanted to make good on what he’d just learned, he had no choice but to wait until morning.
It couldn’t come soon enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AN ABSURD NOTION
THE fortress gardens were still glistening with dew when Joss set out the next morning in search of Rowan. He had decided not to bring the others with him, preferring to sneak out early and keep this absurd notion to himself. It didn’t help that Drake and Hero had been nigh on inseparable since their fight and subsequent reconciliation. More often than not, they were quietly chatting to one another in the den, or off touring the fortress grounds together.
That would have left Joss alone with Edgar, but even the steward seemed preoccupied with his own matters, disappearing for long stretches of time with little or no explanation. Joss wondered if there was someone Edgar could have formed a friendship with during their time at Blade’s Edge Acres. Could he have run into Zeke and made an unlikely connection? The notion was as ridiculous as it was strangely unnerving. Joss made a point of shoving it out of his head as he approached the shack that neighboured the Death House.
‘Hello? Mr Cloudshadow? Are you there?’ he called out, and a moment later the front door swung open.
‘Hello there, lad!’ Rowan said, sticking his head out. ‘Is Hero girl with yeh?’
‘Just me,’ Joss replied as he paused at Rowan’s doorstep.
‘Oh, yeh don’t say? Well, come in, come in. May I offer yeh a cup of hot liquid dirt? Seems too generous to call it coffee. I can provide a dollop of cream to soften the blow, if yeh’d like.’
‘Thank you,’ Joss said politely. As he followed the groundskeeper into the hut, he was struck again by the tinkling of the many wind chimes and the memories they brought with them.
He was still staring at the largest and noisiest of the chimes when Rowan called out, ‘I’ll tell yeh this fer free, yer friend did a fine job fixin’ my hearing device. It’s working so well now that I could pick up almost every footfall yeh made hoofing it through the gardens. Make sure to thank him again for me, will yeh?’
‘Of course,’ Joss said, walking into the kitchenette.
‘Here yeh are,’ Rowan said, handing Joss a coffee in a chipped enamel mug. ‘Now may I ask what brings yeh here this fine Kingsday morn?’
‘Well … I’ve been reading this book,’ said Joss. ‘On Leather Wings – have you heard of it?’
‘Have I heard of it?’ Rowan chuckled. ‘That’s akin to the Holy Somnium a
round these parts, lad.’
‘In that case, do you know the part where he’s lost in the Searing Sands and a traveller passes by who makes a poultice from starmore and moonroot and it clears up the eye trouble that Sur Ichabod’s pterosaur has been having? I thought if I could make something similar, it might help with my own mount’s vision.’
‘They have yeh riding Tempest, don’t they?’ Rowan made a knowing face. ‘Yeh wouldn’t be the first prentice come undone by that pterosaur’s foul temperament. But yeh may well be onto something, lad. It’s the paladeros’ beasts what get the best care. The stabled animals are oft left to fend for themselves, more or less. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was as simple an ailment as that. I’ll make up that poultice for yeh. Hopefully it’ll do the job.’
‘Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it,’ Joss said as Rowan stepped into the sunroom, unlocked a cabinet and fetched the necessary ingredients.
‘Not at all, lad. It’s what I’m here for!’ the groundskeeper called out over the sound of clanking jars. ‘In fact, I could do with the company. Too few people have come knocking on my door in recent weeks. Ever since the discovery I made in his lordship’s solar, in fact. It’s as if they feel I’ve been marked by it.’
‘About that,’ Joss said, while Rowan marched back into the room with his arms full of exotic materials. ‘Have you learned anything more? Or come across any kind of proof?’
Rowan shook his head, setting everything out on the table before him. ‘No, lad. I’ve had a word or two with a sympathetic ear. But nobody’s had any time to spare or light to shed. It’s often like that in life. Mysteries remain unsolved. Gut instincts go untested.’ His lip twisted as he concluded by saying, ‘The wicked go unpunished.’
Joss frowned with disappointment. ‘I see,’ he said. He wondered if he should share Hero’s theory about Rayner and his role in Lord Haven’s death, then decided it was better to let her do that herself.
The Edge of the World Page 17
