by Dylan Doose
“Hand me that mirror,” Dalia said to Corvas. He sat across from her, a man on the far side of middle age, a man who did more killing than he did talking. His hairline was well receded, a mop of gray hair where he still had it, and a gray chin-strap beard that went down to his chest. He wore fine black linen clothes, thin black boots, and thin black gloves. Across his lap were two large, crescent-moon-shaped knives forged of a glimmering blue-silver alloy found only in the eastern mountains of Kehldesh…or so that was what Corvas boasted. Dalia had no reason to doubt him. She had been watching those blades take off human heads for years; they never seemed to dull.
“The mirror, on the seat to your left, Corvas. The handle is peeking out from under there,” Dalia said, pointing to the black bear fur cloak that she wore on the road.
“You look fine,” Corvas said, but he still took the mirror from beneath the cloak and handed it to Dalia.
There was a small ruckus outside the carriage, and a form that looked like a head pressed against the curtain of the window.
“Away, you filth! Away from the noble carriage!” said one of her men outside who was dressed as a knight. His command was followed by a yelp, and the form no longer pressed against the curtain’s surface.
A score of her men rode beside the carriage, masquerading as her noble guard. They had lost only six men on the road that morning. They had been up against good fighters, and Dalia had expected more casualties.
They had been seen only by the dead as they scrubbed the blood from the edges of the dark blue linens that draped the noble carriage, as they soaked and cleaned the dead knights’ suits of armor with vinegar and rags before donning them. They kept the sun sigil on the carriage and the cart. That was all it took to create the ruse that Dalia was a daughter of Chech, a worthy guest, one expected to attend the Basilica this night.
And through it all, the demon had whispered in her ear promises and prophecies. When first they met she had believed him, believed that he was a god and that his words were true. But in time, she came to see him for what he was: a demon. It mattered not at all. All that mattered was that she had her revenge, and Dammar, god or demon, would help her get it.
Dalia looked into the mirror that Corvas held for her. A crack ran through the center, yet despite the distortion she could see what last-minute fixes needed to be made. Her lips were pale and her face had a peasant’s tan. The dark bags under her eyes were severe enough to make one wonder if they were caused by exhaustion or from a fist.
“I do not look fine. I look like death,” Dalia said. “That kit there at your feet, to your right—hand me that, would you?” She pointed to the bag, which she thought likely contained cosmetics. She hadn’t looked into the thing until now.
Corvas handed her the bag.
“Thank you. Now hold the mirror up straight in front of my face, so I can do this.”
Corvas sighed and did as he was instructed. Dalia opened the blue satchel embroidered with the gold emblem of Chech and began fishing through. She found what she sought—a powder produced from ground Madonna’s white lily—and set to paling her face, for no lady of any worth would be as tanned as she. True ladies of Romaria had the palest of skin, made luminous by the dusting of gold across their cheeks. If she were going to play the part, she would play it well.
She returned the white powder to the bag when it was well applied, and next she dug out the lip rouge, also derived of ground petals, but of a different kind: Red Carthamums. Dalia applied it to her lips and the slightest bit of it to her cheeks. Then came the dust of pure gold.
It was that simple. In moments she became a proper lady, and not a pagan running through the woods.
“What do you think?” Dalia asked Corvas as she took the mirror from him and put it down.
“Passable,” he grumbled after inspecting her briefly then returning his focus to his exotic knives.
“Good.” Dalia leaned back against the seat and felt the small, one-handed pickaxe, the shaft ten inches of oak, an inch in diameter, and at the head was a thin four-inch spike. The weapon was fastened through a leather loop at the back of her corset; her bear fur cloak would keep it concealed. Beneath her skirt were sheathed blades on each thigh. The tools of her purpose.
It was a remarkable thing to have that, a purpose. It was a bright red river of blood leading the way through black woods of misery and loneliness, and each time she fell, each time she was beaten to the floor and kicked in the belly, she tilted her head down and drank from the river. She took her fill of purpose, and when she stood she made them kneel.
She could not yet make out his words, but she heard the octave of the Patriarch’s voice, and in moments they would be in the city center and she would be gazing upon Father once again, just as she had in the past life, the one she had fled. She hardly remembered that life. She remembered him and the evil he had done her. She remembered moments of joy, stolen with her lover. She remembered the agonizing pain of a lost love. And she remembered who was at fault.
“I see it!” screamed a man on the street over the noise of the rest of the rabble outside of Dalia’s carriage. “I see the light! The miracles have begun. Glory be to the Luminescent!”
“Glory to the Patriarch. Glory to the Luminescent!” shrieked a woman, her words distorted by sobs.
Dalia looked at Corvas and grinned.
Corvas looked down at his knives and said, “Soon…very soon.”
Pulling back the curtain, Dalia looked out. She looked up and saw him standing on the southern balcony in his armor of gold, sculpted to look as if he were being hugged by the very arms of the Luminescent. On either side of the balcony rose two white pillars, orbs of golden glass at the tops. And though she could not see them through the milling throng, she knew they waited just below that balcony: the pyres.
“Show them to me, lord!” the Patriarch boomed. “Show me the afflicted! Show to me the weary and the sick. I shall bring before them the sinner, the pagan, the children of Dammar. I will show them the light. They will feel the fire, and as they are consumed by flame, the Luminescent will shower his benevolence down upon you, my flock, in glorious beams.” The last word was released with inhuman volume, and it echoed and silenced the rabble, silenced thousands.
Two bolts of white lightning shot down from the sky and struck the golden orbs on the pillars. There was an explosion of blinding light, so intense Dalia turned away, and when she could once again see, the sky over the city was nearly as bright as day, the golden orbs illuminated like two suns glowing above the Patriarch.
Dalia pulled her head back into the carriage as the throng cried out, sounds like animals, like dogs howling at their master as he prepared their food. Even if he was only feeding them shit.
Corvas poked his head out and yelled at the driver to get a move on. “To the entrance at the eastern wall set aside for the nobles.”
The carriage did not change pace; it could not, for there were too many people, and short of her guards hacking through them, there was nothing that could speed the carriage up.
“There is no rush. Nothing wrong with being fashionably late,” Dalia said with a small smile. Corvas met her eyes for a moment, then he looked back to his knives. He was afraid; she could see it. He had been in more battles, skirmishes, and duels than Dalia, killed more men than her by more than fivefold. But this was not going to be a battle, or a murder, or a village burning. This was going to be the making of a legend, the birth of a myth, one of horror and tragedy.
Corvas had spent his life killing for no reason, and now he had a reason, a purpose. She was his reason. And after a lifetime of nothingness, he was committed to their path. His fear was not of suffering or even death. His fear was of failure, of failing her, his progeny, the girl he had embraced as the son he had never had.
“We will be successful, Corvas. Victory will be ours,” she reassured him.
Corvas looked back up from his blades. This time he held her stare. He did not wait for the words of man
or woman; he waited for the words of the demon.
“I have seen it, Corvas,” Dalia began, and he had to lean in to hear her because the dogs in the streets were wild and drunk on their faith in a false prophet for a lying god. “I know what happens next. He has told me. He talks to me even now.”
“What does he say?” Corvas asked.
“He tells me that those hounds out there, every male, bitch, and pup is going to feel what we felt as they hunted us like rabbits in a field, chased us until our hearts burst, shredded our kin before us, drank their blood and mulched their bones. Those mothers who nurtured their babes, who wept with joy at their children’s first steps. Those fathers who fed their families and fraternized as men. Those sons and daughters who wished only to be loved by the mothers, the fathers. By the Patriarch. By the Luminescent. We will kill them all.”
The carriage came to a halt. The curtain covering the window was pulled back by a mailed hand.
“We are here. The guards will not allow us entry with our men and weapons,” said Dalia’s man, Gorst Van Bjorg.
“Of course,” Dalia replied as he opened the door. He was a young man, perhaps Dalia’s age. He had big, wild eyes and brown hair, parted in the center and pushed back behind his ears. It curled forward beneath the lobes so that it looked as if he had ram’s horns.
“The time has come,” Dalia said. Then she nodded at Gorst. He extended his hand. She took it and stepped from the carriage. Noble carriages lined the way, all marked with crests and adorned with colored linens.
Corvas stood at her side, his blades concealed in the hidden sheaths of his black leather bracers. “Get those southern gates open, and descend with the horde on this very structure no later than midnight, Gorst,” he said, and grabbed Gorst by the back of the neck.
“It will be done.” Gorst bowed his head so that their foreheads touched.
Corvas shook him and repeated, “Midnight. Midnight.”
“It will be done,” Gorst repeated. He turned to Dalia and bowed low once again, then he whistled and the entourage fell back as Corvas and Dalia approached the doors to the Basilica.
Six soldiers in golden chain mail, white capes, white linen trousers, and golden masks sculpted with a smile that Dalia knew well stood at the door, gold-tinged spears and shields in hand. There were at least several hundred of these soldiers in the city, and the Golden Sons of the Golden Sun added to that number. But it would not matter. Nothing they could do would stop what was coming.
Between the soldiers stood an unarmored woman, robed and hooded all in white. She wore no mask, but her smile hid much. She was one of the chosen Sun Maidens for the night’s festivities.
“Welcome to Brasov, to the city of light. Welcome to the Basilica,” she said, in a tone that suggested to Dalia the Sun Maiden had been burning the poppy that evening to get closer to the Luminescent.
The Basilica’s eastern doors opened; the Sun Maiden stepped to her left, turned, bowed, and extended her arms, bidding the guests enter. She was unaware that she would almost certainly die tonight, unaware that the ones to seal her fate walked past her right then. She had just killed her holy Patriarch, and she had no idea.
Dalia stepped through the open doors. She was home; it was time to see her father, time to kill her father, but not before he watched her take his house, impale his disciples, and fill the streets with the blood of his slaughtered sheep. Her father was so fond of sacrifices. This would be her gift to him.
Tonight was the night of the antlered god.
“Tell me what he whispers to you,” Corvas said, and his arm tightened around Dalia’s.
“At ease, my good Corvas,” Dalia murmured, as she looked over the room and took in the sights, all the native and foreign lords and ladies, some Enlightened and true servants of the Luminescent, others just there for the Luminescent’s gold. “He says the White City will pulse with new life, beneath a red sky and a black moon. First Morning will never come. He says we will crush the many-headed beast.”
She could feel the demon within. He was hungry for his release, anxious for what was his due. She leaned on Corvas for support as her eyes rolled back and she peered into her own skull and saw what the demon saw. Saw it all in brilliant detail. The sky a red haze, black clouds whirling in a continuous circle above the city, lightning cast down into the ever-rising rivers of blood in the pulsing, wailing, cursed streets below.
She blinked and her gaze returned to the moment. She stood tall, taking her weight on her own limbs instead of Corvas’s arm. Her gaze danced across the faces in the crowd and landed on a figure in a white monk’s robe and hood, hunched over and limping. He walked with a tall wooden staff.
That monk…go to him. Speak to him. He is…most fortuitous to our cause. The demon’s voice commanded from within, gleeful—excited, even—for whatever he saw hiding beneath that monk’s robes he had not expected to see, and it stirred him.
Who is he? Dalia asked the demon.
A wizard. I sense his…importance. Do not kill him.
Then what am I to do with him? she asked.
Give to me his power.
The hunched form turned his head and Dalia glimpsed his face. It was no old, crippled monk, but a handsome young man, a red gemstone round his neck. And when she saw the stone, she had an unquestionable feeling that she had seen it before. But not on a man. On a woman.
A woman she did not know.
But he knew her, the demon.
Every memory was a blur, and she was never sure which belonged to her, to the demon, or to the person the demon told her she had been before she woke up, naked in that field, her head aching and empty.
She followed the monk’s gaze into the crowd. It was difficult to find something that stood out when everyone in the Basilica was of the strange and bizarre, rich and splendid. There was even a Kehldeshi queen among the guests, her skin only a few shades lighter than obsidian. She and her company of five of the tallest, most muscular men Dalia had ever seen, wearing sleeveless robes made of purple and gold silk, were turning the heads of many of the guests… But not you, handsome wizard. Where are you looking?
His eyes went past the bulk of the crowd to where a few smaller groups were gathered by the eastern corridor. Past them, a door near the base of the spiraling stairs of the sun tower was being closed by one of the Patriarch’s knights.
A memory of Dalia and her love standing before that same door flashed in her mind. She could see his hair shining like gold, hear the both of them laughing as they turned and ran off into the night.
No, Dalia thought as she focused back on the man she had just mistaken for the Patriarch’s knight. He is not wearing their armor. He does not wear the smiling mask. He turned for a moment to look into the crowd, then shifted away and marched along the corridor. Dalia watched his back as he walked away from the revelers. He wore a black cloak so faded that it was closer to gray. Blond hair flowed out from the bottom of a dark iron helmet with a spike protruding directly out from either side. He looked like a raider, a man from the northern isles. He was tall and wide as a door in the shoulders, although not as large as those Kehldeshi giants. He had a claymore on his back, and a short sword sheathed at his hip; he was the only man walking freely within the Basilica visibly armed. Dalia did not need the demon’s voice to tell her he was a threat.
“He is so paranoid he has hired mercenaries,” Dalia said to Corvas as they both surveyed the room.
A Sun Maiden played a dreamy serenade on a harp, while a choir of boys who sounded like they had had their balls chopped accompanied her. The sound was not altogether horrible, if Dalia were honest, but it was better suited for sleeping than dancing. Still, she examined the way some of the guests moved together, and she grabbed Corvas and tried to follow suit.
“What are you doing?” Corvas asked, confused.
“Dancing.” And she laughed.
They did a very slow turn, much as everyone else was doing.
“Next time I turn, take
a look over my shoulder. There is a wizard in a white monk’s robe making his way along the wall. He is hooded, hunched, and holding a staff,” Dalia said. “Do you see him?”
“Yes,” Corvas said.
“I will introduce myself to him,” Dalia said. “Now look to the eastern corridor.” They turned again. “Do you see the northman with the horned helmet?”
“Yes,” Corvas said.
“He is yours. Dammar has marked the wizard. I will take him alive. The other can die.”
They turned again and again, making their way to the edge of the crowd. With the expression of grim death painted on his wrinkled face, Corvas went right, to the eastern corridor, in pursuit of the northern mercenary. Dalia went left toward the wizard. His energy, his power, drew her. She would suck out every last drop, and destruction would be born anew.
Her eyes fixated on the red gemstone round his neck, and the certainty that she knew the thing intensified. She was afraid of it.
No, she was not afraid. The demon was afraid.
We are one and the same.
We are not.
As the demon laughed at her defiance, Dalia went forth to the handsome young man playing as a monk and a cripple. She went forth to the fire.
* * *
All he had done was look up past the rim of his pulled-up hood and for the briefest moment stared at the beautiful woman. Father Riker had seen, and that was enough for the lash that night.
“Your task at service,” Father Riker said, and swung the nine-tailed whip, “is to walk the aisles and give the ashes of the martyrs to the flock, brother Aldous.”
Another lash. This was the second, and Aldous was sure the next would draw blood.
“This is for your own good. The sin must be beaten from you. This is to save you from the flames, boy.”
Another lash. Aldous whimpered.
“Proverb 6:69: Suffer not her temptation, be not lustful of her. Gaze not into her eyes and so be seduced!” Father Riker was frothing, fanatical with religious fervor. Or just sadism.
