Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series)

by Ben Galley

  ‘Well, I don’t see it as a treat.’

  ‘No, from what little you have told us of your home, I highly doubt you would,’ Gaspid hummed. He turned around and clapped Korrin lightly on the back. ‘You’re not going back are you?’

  Korrin shook his head.

  Gaspid made for the indoors. ‘Go home, lad, see your father. If you were my son, I would be proud,’ he called.

  Korrin waited until he heard the thump of the tower door closing before replying. ‘If only you were my father, Gaspid. If only.’

  Chapter 10

  “I don’t understand all these street-yellers and god-huggers. There’re too many to keep count these days. Can’t hardly tell the difference between them all.”

  “I know the main ones. There’s the Enlightened Brotherhood, the ones with the shaven heads.”

  “And who are they?”

  “They’re the ones who think the gods speak directly to them. And they’ll charge you a fistful of coin to hear what they say, too. Snobby gold-makers.”

  “Figures.”

  “Then there’re the Thunderites, Thron worshippers and Siren-fanciers, those are. Think Thron single-handedly saved us in the Battle. Then you’ve got the Company of Souls. They think you have to earn the gods’ love by repentance and humility and beating yourself with a stick. Then there’re the Voices of Jötun. An Albion movement, worshipping their earth god. The Ranks of Starry Vengeance. Word has it they think the gods want battle and death. Think humanity has gotten all soft. Want a war. And of course the Glorified Remnant. Strange crowd. They think magick has caused all Krauslung’s problems. From Vice to the old Siren war. They want the mages and the Written disbanded.”

  “Sound like a clever lot.”

  “And then you’ve got the Knights…”

  “The Knights? Are those the moon-worshippers?”

  “No, the Knights of Fortuitous Balance, so they’re called. Evernia-worshippers, and rightly so. Dangerous, so I hear.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “Let’s just say that people who speak out against them and their goddess tend to go… er, missing.”

  “Dear me. What a mess. What is the point of all this? It gives me a headache.”

  “It’s our human right to ask questions, old chap. The squabble is over who has the answers.”

  “And what questions are these idiots supposed to be answering? I just don’t see it.”

  “Why, the biggest question of all!”

  “And what’s that then?”

  “What do you believe?”

  Conversation overheard between two city guards on the night watch. Transcribed by a passing Arfell scholar

  Krauslung awoke to a morning full of mists and the prospect of sunshine. Between the winding streets, windows were opened and people ventured out into the day. The quiet shuffle of shoes and heels on cobbles, shops being opened, markets being filled, and the murmurs of morning conversations floated into the air and joined the smells of bakers and fish-stalls preparing themselves for the day. It was Krauslung at its most peaceful state, when the drunks from the night before had either fallen into bed or into a gutter, when the city was still yawning, teetering on the precipice of another busy day.

  On the western side of the city, where the morning mists still wafted around the roots of the buildings, a man bedecked in sparkling armour emerged from a guardhouse and stretched, relieving his aching muscles. Modren stared up at the glistening, sheer walls of the Arkathedral, several streets away. If he looked hard, he could see the wooden cranes and scaffolding atop its lofty reaches, already in the process of being dismantled. And if he had really looked, he might have been able to see a tiny speck hovering high above them, gliding and swooping with impatience. Ilios, eager for his new nest.

  Modren finished his stretching and stepped out into the city, emerald cape swirling around his steel knees. It was a quiet morning, a peaceful one. The best kind. The mists caressed the buildings and turned the streets into veins of ethereal dreams. The sort he liked to start his day with, the kind where he could patrol unhindered, un…

  The peaceful morning was abruptly shattered by a hoarse screeching.

  ‘Beware the magick devils in our midst! They seek to pervert the course of human nature!’

  With a sigh, the Undermage stopped in his tracks, placing his brow firmly between his finger and thumb. Not today, he prayed. Not this morning. His pleas went ignored. More shouting split the silence.

  ‘There! That one! Ring-leader of the abominations himself. Undermage Modren is his name!’

  Modren turned to face his heckler. A man, a skinny fellow in a violently purple robe, with his hair braided in a long tail, was standing on a wooden box on the corner between two alleyways. Upon seeing the dangerous look in the captain’s eyes, he cleared his throat and turned around, wobbling slightly on his rickety pedestal. He raised his arms to his listeners, what few of them there were, and shouted some more.

  ‘Heed my words, friends! We of the Glorified Remnant are campaigning for the banning of magick users in this city. There is an epidemic, friends, an epidemic in the streets of this fine city.’ There was a pause as the man took a quick glance at the Undermage. Modren had taken several large steps forward. The man gulped, but continued nonetheless. ‘An epidemic that wears armour and g… green cloaks, an epidemic that would see this city fall into ruin again should it be allowed to remain!’ The man threw his hands wide to his audience, a little crescent of people that hovered in the middle of the little cobblestone intersection. Some tittered between themselves, shaking their heads at this apparent madman. A few others nodded earnestly and elbowed each other to agree. Others wandered past, a range of intrigue and bemusement on their faces. Modren, on the other hand, had seen quite enough. He took another step forward.

  ‘You mean this sort of green cloak?’ he asked loudly, making the man jump. Modren smiled as he brushed a bit of dust from his shoulder and picked at a stray thread. ‘It’s more of an emerald, really.’

  The man took one look at the Written and held his arms across his chest. ‘I will not wither in the presence of this dangerous beast! Do you see, friends? We live in the shadow of a marble dictatorship! We are not free, we live at the mercy of the magick-users!’

  Modren took hold of the man’s robe and gave it a sharp tug. The man swiftly came free of his box. A few people in the crowd sniggered. Others shook their heads and muttered darkly. ‘Come on now, I only want to have a little chat,’ said Modren, keeping his smile firmly on his face.

  ‘But… but…’ the man protested, but it was of no use. Modren’s grip was one of steel. The man was trapped. Cloth shoes dragging and stumbling, he tried to keep up with the Undermage’s swift pace. His boots thudded in time to his words.

  ‘You know what gets me about you Remnant lot?’ Modren was saying. ‘Out of all of the preachers and raving lunatics filling our streets, you’ve got to be the stupidest of them all,’ he laughed. The man had gone a sickly shade of white. He tripped momentarily but Modren hauled him straight back up and marched him on.

  ‘I…’ he ventured.

  ‘I’m glad you realise it.’

  ‘But…’

  Modren shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘But of course! Who would imagine that a city like this, a city with a proud past, a past, I might add, that has always been rooted in magick, protected on all sides by brave mages and Written and governed by two of the kindest and most virtuous Arkmages the history books have ever had the pleasure of knowing, could breed such an ungrateful, idiotic band of simpletons such as yourselves!’

  The man was sweating now. ‘You…’

  Modren clapped a hand to his forehead. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, would you? How can anyone, after all the magick council has done to rebuild Krauslung and keep this city together, believe that its people would then call for its dissolution? Not forgetting all the training my mages go through, and the good job they do protecting this city and its people from bandi
ts, magick pests, and the like. Who in their right mind would try to have them banned and banished, simply for doing what comes naturally to them? Who, I ask you?’

  Silence.

  Modren came to a sudden halt, throwing the man off-balance and then pushing him hard against a wall. He pointed a finger in the man’s face, nearly skewering his eye. ‘You lot, that’s who,’ he hissed. ‘You got some gall to stand on a street corner and call me and my kind “abominations.” I’ve got half a mind to send you out with the next mountain patrol, and see how long you last with the wolves and bandits.’

  The man shook like a jelly.

  ‘Trouble, Undermage, sir?’ interjected a passing city guard, intrigued by the man’s whimpering. Modren snapped his fingers.

  ‘Absolutely!’ he said. ‘Take this man and toss him in a cell for a day and a night. See if you can find some of those Repugnant Souls lot to throw him in with.’

  The guard, a young man with a shaven head, looked very pleased with that. He looked at the quivering man and then back to Modren. He raised a hand. ‘If I might be so bold, sir…?’

  Modren nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘We just arrested some members of the Ranks. They might like to meet this one.’

  ‘The Ranks of Starry Vengeance?’

  ‘Those are the ones.’

  ‘Perfect. They like a good non-believer.’

  ‘Atheists, I think they call them, sir.’

  ‘I call them idiots.’

  ‘Right you are, Undermage.’

  The man clasped his hands together as the guard seized him by the scruff of his neck. He cried out as he was hauled away. ‘P… please, no. I haven’t done anything wrong!’

  Modren put his hands on his hips. ‘Inciting dissent amongst the populace. Spreading fear and false rumours. Slander against the Arkmages, esteemed magick council, the Undermage himself, and my own mages. Anything I’ve missed, soldier?’

  The young guard shook his head. ‘Not that I can tell, sir.’

  ‘Good work. Take him away then.’

  The guard saluted with his spear, and, with a fistful of the man’s violet robe firmly in his grasp, made for the nearest barracks, his quivering wreck in tow.

  Modren waited until they had disappeared from view before rubbing his weary forehead. This city was going mad, once again, he thought.

  ‘With all due respect, your Mages, I want to know why we are entertaining these thoughts at all!’ yelled Malvus Barkhart, from his bench in the middle of the Arkathedral. He was yelling for two reasons, firstly to make himself heard over the dismantling of the cranes outside the stained-glass windows, and secondly because he was outraged. Livid. It was obvious in his blood-rushed cheeks.

  A murmur of agreement came from the council gathered around him. Malvus got to his feet and marched forward, pushing his way through lines of councillors. Most of them clapped him on the back as he passed, whispering and hissing words of encouragement. He shouted as he moved.

  ‘I have it on good authority that the Schools are now accepting anybody who shows the barest inkling of magick in their veins. Not only that, but I’ve heard that the costs we originally agreed on imposing on such admissions are being waived in favour of the sheer number of applicants? I demand to know why this is happening, and moreover, I demand that it stop immediately!’

  ‘Council Barkhart…’ began Durnus, listening to the impatient squeaks of Malvus’ shoes on the white marble floor. He held up his hand, but the man would not be silenced.

  ‘Farmboys, milkmaids, goat-herds, sailors… are these the mages we want protecting our borders? It makes me sick, to think of such magickal gifts, gifts that we have spent centuries nurturing in our proud bloodlines, being shared with common rabble! I hear from Essen that the situation has become even worse than here in Manesmark. It’s an epidemic, I tell you!’

  Another chorus of agreement from most of the council, louder this time.

  ‘Enough!’ shouted Tyrfing, nursing his head. He had spent another night in his forge, hammering blades into submission. The pounding of his forge-hammer was now echoing in his tired brain. This blasted meeting was doing nothing to alleviate it.

  The council slowly came to a simmering silence. Malvus stood a dozen feet from the twin thrones. Like most of the Arkathedral’s great hall, they had been rebuilt after the battle with Vice, and now they were more ornate than ever before. They rose from the marble tiles like two saplings entwined around a curving set of steps. Their branches curved to form two high-backed seats, gilded and inlaid with the names of every Arkmage and Undermage since the Arka began. At their base, set a few yards to the side, was the Underthrone, a throne similar in shape, yet smaller, and painted with veins of dark green. For the moment, it was empty. Modren was elsewhere, another source of constant comment for Malvus.

  ‘I will not sit here and listen to you moan and rant, Council. Present your views calmly and objectively, or don’t present them at all,’ ordered Tyrfing.

  ‘Forgive me, but it seems to be the only way to get through to you, Arkmage Tyrfing. You look as if we’re sending you to sleep.’

  ‘If only,’ muttered Tyrfing. Durnus continued on his behalf.

  ‘I will explain to you and the council once again, Barkhart, that although we are enjoying a period of peace, I refuse to keep our guard down. We are using this time to swell the ranks of the army, and we are using what the gods have given us to increase our number of mages. This burst of magick isn’t something to be reviled and feared, Malvus, it is something we can use to our advantage if a foe were to rear its head.’

  A young councilwoman stood up and raised her hand. Tyrfing gestured for her to speak. ‘What foes, Arkmages?’ she said. ‘Who exactly have we to fear? The factions of the Crumbled Empire squabble amongst themselves. The Sirens are our allies now. The Albion Dukes are growing stronger, but they fight between themselves for land and coin, so who? Who do we have to fear?’

  ‘I agree!’ came a shout.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘What of these Written murders? Should we be worried?’

  ‘Is that what you’re afraid of?’

  Durnus shook his head. ‘The murders are nothing except unfortunate events. Undermage Modren is looking into them. But the possibility of a foe, so far unimagined, unrealised, still remains. Emaneska is changing, and we will see ourselves protected. End of discussion!’

  ‘Soldiers and mages cost more coin than farmhands and milkmaids!’

  ‘Magick is for the elite, not for the peasants!’ came another shout, a stance that more and more of the council seemed to share these days. The city’s new sentiments were not just confined to the streets; they were creeping into the magick council and infecting the ears here too. Durnus could hear it in their hushed whispers, their corridor murmuring. Some, he suspected, were already part of the new cults, secretly of course, but they grew bolder every day and with every meeting. He heard their names hissed behind hands: the Ranks, the Repugnant Souls, the Glorified Remnant, the Voices of Jötun, the Enlightened Brotherhood, the Knights of Fortuitous Balance, and something called the Marble Copse, a rather secretive faction indeed, deeply embedded in the council itself. Durnus sighed.

  ‘Nobody knows that more than I do,’ came a shout. It was Modren, standing at the doors of the great hall, beside the newly restored statue of Evernia. His arms were crossed and his face as stern as a storm front. He, like Tyrfing, was barely in the mood for another cacophonous magick council. He walked forward, sunlight and stained-glass painting rainbows on his armour. The ranks of councillors parted for him, silent. They knew better than to provoke him. Modren had never quite adjusted to the politics like Tyrfing and Durnus had. He was still a soldier at heart, and like one, he strained to confine his arguments to his mouth, rather than let them escape to his fists, or his flames, much to the concern of several council members.

  Modren pushed past Malvus and sat upon his throne with a clang, steel striking marble. He rested his elbows on t
he arm of his throne. ‘I’m as worried as you are by this sudden surge of applicants, Council Barkhart. It makes my job harder.’

  ‘Then you’ll agree that this needs to be stopped, Undermage Modren.’

  The mage shook his head. ‘No, I do not. I agree with the Arkmages. If an army marched up to our gates tomorrow, I’d rather have a thousand peasants who know how to wield a spell than a thousand peasants who can only wield a pitchfork. Something strange may be happening to this world, but all it takes to resolve it is the right training. That I can do.’

  A man shouted from the back of the hall. ‘Better we take them in and teach them, rather than have them causing trouble in the towns, or splintering off altogether.’

  Tyrfing clicked his fingers. ‘Exactly,’ he said, thanking the councillor with a nod. At least they still had a few allies.

  ‘And who pays for all of this?’ Malvus challenged.

  ‘They cost too much!’

  ‘We’re already stretched too thin as it is with the rebuilding.’

  ‘A war-sized army in peace time is a waste of coin!’

  Durnus held up his hands for peace. ‘Our coffers can cope.’

  Malvus turned around and raised his hands to the council. ‘For how long? I would wager that they’re already running low. Soon you will be announcing new taxes, and where will we be then? Stunting our trade to feed an army we don’t need. Unless, of course, there’s something you’re not telling us?’

  ‘And thinning your pockets no doubt, Malvus,’ challenged Durnus. ‘That is what you are truly concerned about, is it not?’

  Malvus turned to glare, but quickly remembered his place. He bowed instead, keeping his eyes on the floor. ‘I fear you are mistaken, your Mage. My humble coin goes directly to keeping this city on its course; to becoming an empire in its own right. The only true power in Emaneska.’

  There were cheers from some in the hall. Others grinned unabashedly. Some even had the audacity to clap, as if it were some piece of theatre. Malvus adjusted his ruffled silk collar. There was the faintest hint of a smile on his face. ‘I only wish you could see that, your Mage,’ he said, and then suddenly held his hand to his mouth, feigning embarrassment. ‘Oh, my apologies, Arkmage,’ he said. Close behind him somebody sniggered.