by Den Patrick
‘Oh no,’ said Kristofine. She pointed across the street to a sorry-looking building with broken shutters.
‘What?’ Steiner squinted; then he saw the large sheet of parchment plastered to the side of the building. He crossed the street with a frown fixed on his face. Reka and Kristofine followed. The poster displayed a likeness of a hooded Vigilant with a blank mask. Though the artist couldn’t capture the effect, Steiner knew it to be the mirrored mask of Silverdust.
‘What do these words say?’ said Steiner. Grief flooded through him at the sight of his old friend.
‘Can’t you read Solska?’ replied Reka.
‘Can’t read any language.’ Steiner shrugged. ‘The words have a habit of moving around when I concentrate. Trying to read makes my head ache.’
‘Well, in that case …’ Reka turned back to the poster. ‘It says he is wanted by the Synod. Perhaps they don’t know that he died on Arkiv.’
‘Or perhaps it’s an old poster,’ said Kristofine, picking at one corner of the parchment.
‘We should keep moving,’ said Reka. They were no more than a few minutes’ walk further up the street before they came to the next poster.
‘Is that …’ Steiner struggled to keep the smile off his face. ‘Is that supposed to be me?’
‘Steiner! It’s not funny.’ Kristofine marched past the poster without a backwards look. The man in the illustration was a giant wielding a hammer as long as he was tall. Gurning, scarred, and heavily muscled, the Steiner in the poster was a far cry from the wiry youth standing before it.
‘Come on, now,’ said Reka. ‘You well know you’re famous. Let’s not get snared by vanity.’
‘They have posters of me,’ whispered Steiner, full of incredulity.
‘They have posters of your legend,’ said Reka. ‘Now you have to measure up. Think you’ve got it in you?’
‘Let’s find out,’ replied Steiner, though in truth he knew they would play everything by ear. He was here to cast down the Emperor, but thoughts of his father were persistent and the task of rescuing him was no less than daunting.
It was almost evening as they approached the inn through rancid streets. Their breath steamed on the air as the pale blue sky began its evening alchemy, transmuting through a hundred pastel hues of scarlet and saffron. A murmur of dismay passed through the city folk and many pointed north. Some of Khlystburg’s citizens gazed from tower windows and called out one word to their kin in terror.
‘Dragon.’
In the distance a fleck of darkness descended, like a flake of soot drifting downwards, and where the darkness fell death would surely follow.
‘Bittervinge,’ said Steiner.
‘It could be any of them,’ said Reka. ‘Frøya knows why you set them all free. I agree with you on most things, but freeing the dragons was pure folly.’
‘No,’ replied Steiner. ‘The younger ones have a right to be free, just like anyone else. Besides, it was Kimi and Silverdust who agreed to free them.’
‘Is it coming closer?’ asked Kristofine. Reka led them to shelter beneath a doorway arch where they still had a good view of the dragon in the distance. Fire bloomed and there was the faintest sound of screaming, spirited to their ears by a chill wind. Steiner’s sledgehammer was hidden by a length of sackcloth and he reached for it on instinct; its haft was warm to the touch. He felt a shiver of anticipation pass through him that had nothing to do with his nerves or the memories of what had befallen the Great Library.
‘The sledgehammer is … awake, I think. It senses him.’
‘Has it ever done that before?’ asked Kristofine.
‘No, but I imagine the Great Library was the first time it had been used against a dragon in a long time.’
‘That was a fight to wake the dead,’ agreed Reka. ‘Come on now. It looks like he’s raiding further north.’
‘We should go there,’ said Steiner, staring at the skies above the city. ‘People will be in danger—’
‘Those people are already dead.’ Reka’s tone was stern and firm. ‘By the time we arrived he’d have likely flown on elsewhere, or retreated back to wherever he makes his den.’
‘But—’
‘We stick to the plan,’ continued Reka. ‘Your aunt will skin me alive if I let you go running off. I know you feel responsible, but no good will come of getting yourself killed the first day we arrive.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ruslan
No one had given the catacombs in the city a second thought. They, like the dead soldiers who took their rest inside, were just a footnote from a period of history people preferred not to think about. The Emperor on the other hand was not one to squander resources, in whatever form they took; even a place as decrepit and lonely as the catacombs featured in his plans.
– From the memoir of Drakina Tveit, Lead Librarian of Midtenjord Province
Of all the myriad possibilities that might occur that day, of all the winding paths and snaking, poisonous routes from daybreak to nightfall, Ruslan would never, could never, have foreseen where he and the Boyar Sokolov might end up. And with whom.
‘Hold the torch a little higher, Rulam,’ said the Emperor, getting his name wrong. Ruslan was too awed to correct him and did as he was told. The Emperor was a dark-haired man with a pale complexion and a high forehead. His voice had a whispery quality to it, yet he enunciated every word with cold precision, somehow sounding both bored and cruel with every utterance. Or perhaps the cruelty merely resided in his gaze. Certainly Ruslan had never been looked upon with eyes so utterly devoid of life. And yet there was some animating presence there, something older than human experience, more chilling that the Grave Wolves of Izhoria, more bitter than a northeasterly wind in the dead of winter.
‘You’re staring again,’ said Boyar Sokolov, leaning close enough to whisper into Ruslan’s ear without alerting the Emperor.
‘Come now, this way,’ replied the Emperor, leading them along unlit passages with rough-hewn walls and never a window to break the monotony. Other passages branched away to who-knew-where, leading only to more impenetrable gloom. Even the memory of sunlight struggled to exist in this place, and the Emperor was another sliver of darkness, at home in it, at one with it. Knee-length riding boots of deepest black, teamed with britches and a finely tailored jacket in a matching hue. Medals and black braid crowded his chest, contrasting with a sash of crimson at his waist, drawing attention from the sheathed dagger on his hip. Ruslan watched the ruler of the Solmindre Empire descend the cold stone steps, fascinated and horrified to be so close. There was a wiry strength about him as he moved, and when he paused the stillness was absolute.
‘I have not ventured this way in so long,’ said the Emperor in his quiet, unnerving voice. Ruslan wasn’t sure if it was merely a comment or an invitation to ask questions, but remained silent. He was only here in order to hold up the torch for his master, and his arm ached not from the burden but the duration. How long had they been walking now? Surely they had left the Imperial Palace and were a good distance outside of the gardens.
‘Not much longer,’ said the Emperor, as if reading his thoughts. ‘It’s just a little further ahead.’ The ruler of Solmindre snared Ruslan in his dead-eyed gaze, and for a moment he was convinced the Emperor knew his every thought, his every hope and weakness.
‘Don’t just stand there staring like some slack-jawed fool,’ snarled Boyar Sokolov. He wrenched the torch from Ruslan’s grip and went ahead, passing the Emperor and heading ever deeper into the dank maze.
‘Are we underground?’ Ruslan asked.
‘A little,’ replied the Emperor. ‘These are the secret ways that lead from the palace to key locations around the city. A man can move about undetected if he has a sharp memory for turnings and directions.’
Ruslan wasn’t convinced they were only ‘a little’ underground. It seemed they must be in the very bones of the world, inhabiting the quiet spaces in its soul. Was the Emperor gaming with him? Casting h
im as a simple fool?
‘You are no fool,’ said the Emperor quietly. ‘Naive perhaps, an optimist, but not a fool.’ He turned away and followed the Boyar, his crimson sash the only colour in the gloom.
Ruslan released an uneven breath he had not realized he’d been holding, and his exhalation steamed on the air.
No one spoke of the goddesses at the Sokolov Estate, in accordance with the Imperial doctrine of the Holy Synod. Ruslan had heard the odd serf whispering about Hel of course, and knew enough that one’s spirit would end up there should a person lead a wicked life, according to the old ways at least. But the old ways were not of the Empire and so Ruslan had never thought too much about the afterlife. Until now.
They stood on a narrow causeway of flagstones, raised up from depressions either side, where sarcophagi slept beneath blankets of dust. The halo of light that played around the torch didn’t reach the ceiling. Not a single sound could be heard in the tunnel and it was spitefully cold, unnaturally so given the season.
‘This is not Hel,’ said the Emperor, and now Ruslan was sure the man could read his thoughts. ‘Though some may think otherwise.’
Ruslan couldn’t tell how far the causeway ran in each direction, but he had the dire feeling the place they stood in was vast.
‘You are a man of great purpose, Your Imperial Highness,’ said Boyar Sokolov. ‘But I am unclear why you led us here.’ He looked around at the many sarcophagi and the inscriptions, though they were obscured by dust. ‘To tell the truth of it, I know not where I am,’ he added.
‘This is the final resting place of our glorious dead,’ replied the Emperor. ‘All those brave souls who took up arms against the dragons over seventy-five years ago’ – the Emperor cast an appraising look around – ‘they reside here. Those soldiers believed in me, they believed in Solmindre, and they dared to believe we could shrug off the tyranny of dragons.’
‘Their sacrifice has not been forgotten, Your Imperial Highness,’ said Sokolov, though his words had the tone of a formal response rather than anything heartfelt.
Ruslan waited for an answer to the Boyar’s question, feeling the creeping chill of the lonely place. Why had they been led to such a dismal setting? Did the Emperor intend to kill them down here and leave them with the dead?
‘Imperial scholars theorize that when a dragon consumes a person they feed not merely on its flesh, but upon its very essence.’ The Emperor stepped out of the torchlight, until he appeared as nothing more than an indistinct shade, a voice in the darkness. ‘And the goddesses of old, they were more indirect but no less terrible.’
The Boyar exchanged a cautious look with Ruslan; that the Emperor himself was breaking his own taboo on discussing the goddesses was unthinkable.
‘How so, Your Imperial Highness?’ asked Sokolov after a pause.
‘The goddesses take a portion of a person’s essence when they reach the afterlife. This is how the goddesses and the dragons maintain themselves over centuries.’
Ruslan’s eye fell on the knife belted at the Emperor’s waist, the Ashen Blade, a weapon so wicked it could drain the life from a person and confer it on the wielder. This, after all, was how Dimitri Sokolov had met his end, and it was notable that the Emperor omitted to mention his similarity to the very beings he despised.
‘The souls of the Solmindre people belong to the Empire,’ said the Emperor, his voice suddenly loud in the dark confines of the catacombs. He lunged back into the torchlight, animated and flushed. ‘The souls of the Solmindre Empire belong to me!’ He beat his medal-laden chest with one fist. ‘I will rule the people of this continent in death just as I rule them in life, and I will not tolerate filthy dragons feeding on our kin, our blood! I will not tolerate foreign goddesses seducing our noble souls for their own ends!’
The Emperor had worked himself up in a crescendo and neither Ruslan or the Boyar had the coda to fill the silence afterwards. The Emperor strode off down the causeway, seemingly unperturbed by the lack of light. Ruslan hurried after him all the same and the Boyar marched stiffly behind. Scores of sarcophagi passed by on either side until they reached a junction.
‘Your Imperial Highness,’ asked Boyar Sokolov, ‘I came to you today in disgrace with the firm intention of making amends and restoring the good name of the Sokolov line and the Vend Province. We have always been most loyal and stalwart supporters.’
‘All true,’ said the Emperor, his voice once more the unsettling whisper in which he usually spoke.
‘Why then lead us here and speak of things that lesser men would be punished or even killed for?’
The Emperor seemed to shiver, or perhaps it was a flinch. When he turned to Boyar Sokolov there was a different quality to those eyes; a terrible sadness lingered there. ‘Because I wanted someone to know what this is all for, why I do the things I do. I will not abide goddesses and winged terrors reigning over the souls of men. For the longest time the Empire has thrived.’
‘But now Steiner Vartiainen stirs up discord across the continent,’ said the Boyar.
‘And I hear whispers,’ said the Emperor, a dreadful sneer on his pale face. ‘Whispers from advisers, whispers from Envoys and Vigilants. All day the whispers come; whispers on the wind speak to me even at night when I would be at my rest.’
Ruslan looked away and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, deeply uncomfortable. The man was clearly unhinged, or close to it.
‘And what do the whispers say, Your Imperial Highness?’ asked Sokolov smoothy.
‘They whisper that the Stormtide Prophet is coming, and that people have begun to worship Frøya and Frejna.’
‘But your powers are considerable, Your Imperial Highness. Your armies vast, your influence far-reaching. Surely you have a way to stop this prophet?’
‘There is one way.’ The Emperor gave a chilly smile. ‘I have you.’ He cupped one of the Boyar’s cheeks with a gentle hand.
‘I … I am not sure I understand you, Your Imperial Highness.’
‘You are to be my trap, Augustine Sokolov. You will lure Steiner Vartiainen into the open, and when I have him I will be safe. The prophet will not dare risk my wrath.’
Sokolov looked to Ruslan with confusion etched into his brow, but his pride prevented him from confessing that he did not understand. Ruslan did his best to serve his lord under the circumstances.
‘We have heard rumours in Vend but little of substance, Your Imperial Highness. Is there some connection between the Stormtide Prophet and Steiner Vartiainen?’
‘Connection?’ The Emperor smiled. ‘A connection?’ He laughed, though it was as cold and bitter as the catacombs where they now stood. ‘She is his sister. Once I have killed her father and the aunt the prophet will pause. She will hesitate in her grief, and then I will bargain with her, a bargain for the very soul of her brother.’
‘And how do I feature in all of this, my lord?’ said the Boyar with a pained expression on his face.
‘You will play the part of the wronged father. You will appear to be on the verge of rebellion, or at least open to the idea of it. Word will spread of your fall from grace and that is how you will earn Steiner’s trust.’
‘And when all of this is over’ – Boyar Sokolov took a step towards the Emperor, his voice low and dangerous – ‘our name will be restored along with the fortunes of the Vend Province?’
‘It will be as you say.’ The Emperor held up a warning finger. ‘But only after you have delivered Steiner Vartiainen to me.’
The Boyar bowed and Ruslan was caught between holding up the torch and performing a bow of his own. In the end he remained upright. He’d spent the afternoon being a glorified sconce, why change now?
‘Go now.’ The Emperor gestured ahead of them. ‘You’ll find a way out in time, just try not to make any noise.’
Ruslan and the Boyar turned to look in the direction the Emperor had indicated, but all that awaited them was darkness. When they turned back the Emperor was gone, joined with the
same darkness he had led them into.
On aching feet they walked, though neither of them dared to complain or speak a single word. Finally they reached a flight of stone steps and emerged in a run-down street just as the sun was setting. The entrance to the catacombs had been hidden behind a warehouse facade. The windows were closed and green paint peeled from the shutters, chained up to prevent prying eyes. Shattered crates and forgotten barrels littered the street, unlovely and unremembered.
‘What now, my lord?’
‘Now we find Steiner Vartiainen,’ said the Boyar. ‘I wanted a way to clear our name and here it is.’
‘But what of Dimitri?’ asked Ruslan in a hushed voice. ‘What of your son?’
‘Dimitri had his chance,’ said the Boyar.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Streig
Not all enchanted items were forged by dragons for malevolent ends. Sometimes, an object could become a focus for arcane power just through a long association with a particular individual, though the individual in question would need to be powerful indeed.
– From the memoir of Drakina Tveit, Lead Librarian of Midtenjord Province
Streig had regained some of his strength, though he still woke in the dead of night convinced he was buried beneath the Great Library. He only ventured out of the tower briefly – such expeditions were exhausting – but he had to find food.
Are you not even a little curious? The disembodied voice sounded rather peevish, and Streig decided he’d be feeling peevish too if he were an undead spirit confined to an urn.
‘Curious about what?’
The desk, of course.
Streig dutifully rolled out of bed, where he’d been picking at the last few crumbs of bread and cheese from a wooden plate.
‘It’s a desk!’ he said after a brief investigation.
I am half-mad with boredom. I have been swallowed by a dragon, passed from this mortal realm, presided over the intolerable cruelty of Vladibogdan, and I demand to know what documents lie upon the desk.
