by Tom Lloyd
‘Your people cry out for peace,’ Ileil begged. ‘How can you deny them that? How can you deny it to those innocents within Scree’s borders after all they have suffered? Outside the walls of Byora the child Ruhen faced down the daemons – he cast them back to the Dark Place; with no army at his back he faced them down, and they could not withstand the power of his message.’
‘I do not care what bargains he makes with daemons,’ Fernal snarled, ‘his message is not welcome here. You have had your warning. Leave now, or die.’
The Child lowered her head sadly and started backing away. ‘Ours is a mission of peace,’ she replied, her voice still raised. ‘If you are so clouded by fear and hatred that you will not hear of peace, we will not inflict greater suffering upon this place. The plague of daemons is a punishment upon us all, but if you refuse to be freed of them, if you refuse to hear Ruhen’s message, then he cannot force you.’
She fixed him with one last, sorrowful look and returned to her horse, her head bowed as though in grief. The entire party left without another word, followed by the Farlan cavalrymen ordered by Duke Lomin to escort the party to the border. Behind him Fernal heard dismissive words from the older nobles and veteran hurscals, but they were not the only mutterings he made out on the wind.
The seeds had been sown. He knew in that moment that the woman had succeeded in her mission; the trouble had only just begun. Fernal watched the preachers leave with sadness in his heart, but those who turned his way saw only the fierce features of a monster and quickly averted their eyes.
CHAPTER 16
Isak crested the hill and a shiver of dread ran down his spine. In the grainy grey light of pre-dawn, Vanach Settlement was slowly unveiled in all its brutal glory. The city on the valley plain below straddled the narrow mouth of a long lake, its arrowhead lines picked out in lanterns along the waterside and on the bridges between the shore and the lake’s two small islands.
‘Reminds me of Tirah,’ Vesna commented from his right, ‘all that old grey stone and dark slate. Just needs a few impossible towers and we’re halfway home.’
Isak nodded slowly. ‘And it’s dwarfed by the lake, like the forest does for Tirah.’
‘There were towers once,’ Mihn said, ‘maybe not as grand as those of Tirah, but still built tall with the work of many mages.’
‘The commissars pulled them down?’
Mihn inclined his head. ‘Before they were called that, yes. It is a common theme of history: people build these monuments, others tear them down. To look down on the Land from upon high … well, men must sometimes be reminded they are not Gods.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Daken growled from behind them. ‘Some of us got ambitions.’
Isak turned to look at the irrepressible white-eye, who courteously inclined his head at his commander. The man was a handful, but had mostly accepted his second-tier status in the group in a way most white-eyes wouldn’t have. Daken’s boasting and lascivious behaviour was mere window-dressing, Isak had realised; a sop to his innate antagonism and stubbornness that demanded some sort of release.
‘You don’t want to be a God,’ Isak said eventually. ‘You’d get bored.’
Daken laughed. ‘Maybe I would at that,’ he agreed. ‘Anyways, not sure I’ll like the look o’ this Land once you an’ Ruhen are through with changing it. I’m a creature o’ habit, me.’
Isak didn’t have an answer to that, but when he met Vesna’s eyes the Farlan hero turned away, his lips pursed. The pain of Tila’s death remained etched clear in the lines of his face, but Isak could see the man was developing something of Lord Bahl’s timeless air.
How many years will you have to live with this loss? Isak wondered.
Vesna drew his arms a little tighter around his body, almost as if Isak had asked the question aloud. If the Mortal-Aspect had an answer, it didn’t appear to be one he liked.
‘My Lord,’ called a rider in accomplished Farlan: an officer of the Black Swords, coning down the road ahead. ‘Dawn will be upon us soon. Lodgings have been prepared.’
Isak acknowledged him and watched the man ride away. The journey to Vanach had been slow, hampered by the Black Swords accompanying them. For days they had feared an attack; that some rogue part of the Night Council would decide to wipe out the uncertainty of Isak’s presence, but nothing had transpired. It had been a cold sort of relief when they’d discovered the truth, pushing their escort to move as fast as possible and coming across soldiers clearing civilians from their path.
Inevitably some word of the saviour prophecies carved into the Grand Ziggurat’s walls had reached the general population over the years. For people without hope, oppressed by the very Gods they worshipped, Isak’s arrival offered a chance of change, and there were those who were desperate to see if the rumours were true, even as the Commissar Brigade were desperate to prevent any contact that might spark insurrection.
Isak’s heart ached for these people. The dismal air of despair infected even the smallest communities under the ever-watchful eye of the commissars, while the labour camps they passed grew incrementally larger. Two days out of Toristern he had tried to get close enough to one to look in the eyes of these so-called heretics – and to test the limits of their escorts’ orders. The commissars marching with these Black Swords were of low rank, and no one stopped him when he rode up to the camp’s gate, though he had been expecting threats and drawn weapons. When Isak had peered over the gate at the emaciated faces beyond, part of him had hoped it would come to violence; but the result of his action was something he couldn’t defend against.
Shouted orders to the camp guards had been obeyed immediately, without even a request for confirmation: one low-ranked commissar’s word was enough for the camp guards to instantly butcher every slave within sight. Only Mihn’s swift action had stopped Isak from turning on his escort and killing them all.
It was only when he had mastered himself that he realised they too were pushing for a reaction; it appeared that the Night Council was more than willing to sacrifice a few regiments for the chance to muster an army of the Blessed against Isak’s group. After that he was more careful with the lives of innocents.
‘Come on,’ Isak muttered eventually, nudging Megenn, the smaller of his two chargers, down the road. ‘One more day and then we enter Vanach. One way or another, this will all be soon over.’
Hulf appeared from the roadside, tongue lolling, after an hour or more out of sight. Isak hadn’t been worried; the ‘heart’ rune had been tattooed on Hulf’s skin along with Mihn’s rowan and hazel leaves. Hulf was a dog bred to hunt, and Isak was certain the connection between them would allow the hound to track him from leagues away.
‘That’s what’s worrying me,’ Vesna said as he took up his position alongside Isak. ‘This whole nation has been built with one purpose: for you to enter the Grand Ziggurat unchallenged and unhindered. What comes after that, we’ve no idea.’
Isak nodded, his eyes on the road before him. ‘Time to find out.’
They were shown into what looked like a large hunting lodge surrounded by a long drystone wall, built on the periphery of a village. It was clearly the retreat of some city official, though there was nothing inside to indicate the nature or rank of its owner: it had been picked clean before their arrival, and only food and furniture had been left by its departing servants.
The upper floors of the lodge afforded them a fine view of both Vanach’s low city walls and the three shrines that separated the lodge and village. A few dozen Black Swords loitered near the shrines in the shade of a row of yew trees, one of which was dead, but covered by a blooming rambling rose, the pink flowers a stark contrast to the dark needles of the other yews and the dour, unpainted shrines.
‘A local tradition?’ Mihn wondered as he saw Isak’s gaze linger on the unusual sight. ‘This is not some recent settlement created to feed the monster on its doorstep.’
‘Maybe. Didn’t think traditions were allowed here.’ Iska shrugged
. ‘It seems power’s the same across the Land, always with its own set of rules.’
‘Not quite,’ Mihn said. ‘The commissars have turned their people into tools, or cattle, perhaps. I have no doubt even the rulers spend much of their time looking over their shoulders, but at least they are allowed to be people. That is something denied to most in Vanach. Even the Farlan nobility are not so cruel.’
‘Maybe they just lack the imagination?’ Isak was unable to force a smile at his own joke. ‘No, not even Lesarl’s that much of a bastard.’
Mihn stared at the city in the distance, lurking at the bottom of the great valley like a snake waiting in ambush.
‘Piety, unquestioned certainty and obedience; they have been distilled into a terrible concoction here. For all his flaws I do not believe the Chief Steward would allow anything he had built to take on a life of its own. He would have not allowed this monstrosity.’
‘But then, he is not a monster,’ came a voice from behind them, causing Isak to flinch in surprise.
He turned and saw Zhia at the doorway to a darkened bedroom, still wearing her long shawl over her head.
‘The same cannot be said for my brother.’
‘Is that what you’d call him?’ Isak asked.
She regarded him for a long while, her expression betraying no anger, but otherwise unreadable. ‘My brother’s suffering surpasses my own,’ she said eventually, ‘and I doubt even you know the lengths I will go to.’
‘Even I?’ Isak echoed.
‘Your torment was greater, but was intended to break the soul, to tear it apart and leave nothing but the seeds of daemonhood behind. Mine …’ Zhia hesitated for a moment. ‘My punishment was to become a monster and always to know it – the Gods did not want to destroy my soul but to torture it. If we succeed, you know my price, but I add something to that now: vengeance should never be exacted in anger; that is one thing my long years have taught me. You must ensure the Gods also appreciate that lesson. They should not repeat their mistakes.’
Isak nodded, feeling the weight of responsibility on him increase a fraction more. He put his hand on Mihn’s shoulder and leaned heavily on the small man. Mihn barely moved, despite the effort it took to support a man almost three times his own weight.
The failed Harlequin was transfixed by Zhia’s words; only when the vampire turned away did he return to himself. ‘All these mistakes,’ Mihn muttered, to himself as much as Isak.
‘What’s the saying, “to err is human”?’
Mihn shook his head. ‘And when the sins are of Gods? Who then forgives?’
‘We’ll all need to,’ Isak said in a tired voice. ‘All this enmity and retribution, it cuts the heart from us all. Hatred poisons even the finest soul and lessens us all.’
He straightened up as best he could and headed for the stairs, leaving Mihn alone at the window.
‘You’re a better man than I,’ Isak called over his shoulder. ‘Without you in my shadow, it might be Azaer there.’
The road to Vanach followed the path of the river flowing out of the city. Their escorts were two new regiments of Black Swords, dressed in ceremonial uniforms, but with the look of hardened veterans about them. A flotilla kept pace with Isak’s party. The river itself was slow and wide for much of the way, but as it narrowed to enter the city, the road became a large avenue lined with statues. It brought them to an enormous peaked gate set in the grey stone wall surrounding Vanach, where what looked like four hundred or more soldiers – approaching a full division – were lined up in formation, awaiting them.
Huge flags hung from the gate bearing symbols of the Upper Circle of the Pantheon. Isak found himself shocked by the grandeur of the whole scene; he had expected a grim, colourless city dominated by the Grand Ziggurat, but Vanach was far older than its current regime and had much architecturally in common with Tirah, the Farlan capital.
Through the great gate Isak could see the ziggurat, framed neatly within the enormous peaked arch. Even in the half-light of evening, the ziggurat’s torch-defined lines were clearly visible against the glow of the eastern horizon. Isak couldn’t judge the distance to it, but he realised it was as large as any building he’d ever seen, maybe the biggest in the entire Land. Even with many mages involved in its construction, Isak guessed it had been steeped in the blood of slaves long before completion.
Large open shines stood at the foot of each side of the gate, one dedicated to Death and the other to Alterr. As they rode closer, Isak saw a group of men and women clustered about each, kneeling in prayer until he came within fifty yards. From behind they looked like monks of Belarannar, in their voluminous brown robes, but they got to their feet and advanced towards Isak and he saw they were far more richly dressed. The brown robes were edged in some yellow pelt, and they fell open at the front to reveal long white tunics bearing the moon-and-river device of Vanach. Each of them wore a different golden chain. They were ten in total, all Priesans, with fifty or more of lesser rank lingering behind. Some of the ten were old and white-haired, but others looked younger even than Prefect Darass.
As Isak, Zhia and Vesna dismounted and approached them, he noted how the escorting soldiers drew discreetly away. In response a tiny, withered woman started forward to meet him, flanked by two men only a little younger than she, and accompanied by a sudden fanfare from both sides. Isak bowed his head and Vesna offered a more formal greeting. Zhia did absolutely nothing, but the Priesan gave no indication of offence.
‘Lord Sebe, the Faithful of Vanach welcome you to our grand settlement,’ the woman croaked in capable Farlan, continuing to move forward until she was no more than two yards from Isak and could speak without straining her voice. ‘I am Priesan Sorolis, Anointed First of the Sanctum. I am the voice of the Sanctum and the lesser councils of Vanach. These are Priesans Dacan and Horotain.’
She indicated the men on either side of her in turn. Dacan was a bloodless looking specimen with prominent eyes and lips so thin Isak could barely see them, while Horotain, the tallest of the three, had probably been handsome once, when he was thinner and younger, but that was a long way past. In his effort to maintain his looks the Priesan now looked like the painted eunuchs Isak had seen in Tor Salan years back.
‘So you rule Vanach,’ Isak stated after a long pause. He had tasted the air, and he could tell she was no mage, just a frail old woman with kindly eyes – hardly the tyrant he had expected of Vorizh Vukotic’s deranged instrument.
‘That, my Lord,’ she said with the hint of a smile, ‘may yet depend on what comes to pass this night.’
‘You ten are the Sanctum?’
‘We are – the elders of the Fifth Enlightenment, appointed by our own to act in council for the glory of the Gods and the good of Vanach.’
‘Any of you also sit on the Night Council?’
Sorolis wheezed as she turned slightly to the scowling figure of Priesan Horotain.
‘Holding a grudge, my Lord?’ he asked. ‘We heard of the attack only after it had taken place. It was not ordered by sitting members of the council, I assure you.’
‘Do you know what I seek?’
‘I know what you will find.’ She gestured to the other members of the Sanctum. ‘To reach the Fifth Enlightenment is to know the mysteries of the Grand Ziggurat and Vanach itself. We are aware, my Lord, of what lies at the heart of our nation.’
‘And you’re bound to it,’ Zhia broke in suddenly, ‘compelled to obey – I can see the threads of magic that bind the throats of each of you.’
The old woman’s face tightened at that and Horotain purpled, but they could not deny it. ‘You are of the blood,’ Priesan Sorolis choked, fighting to get out each word.
Zhia took a step forward and smiled in a predatory way. The bloodless commissar, Dacan, cringed at her closeness, but he was apparently unable to retreat with her eyes fixed upon him. ‘I am of the blood,’ she confirmed, ‘and you chafe under my brother’s yoke, it appears.’
‘We are bound as his pr
otectors,’ Sorolis confirmed reluctantly, ‘charged to see his will done.’ Her face hardened. ‘It is the sin we bear to see the will of the Gods done.’
‘And what of after?’ Isak demanded. ‘All your different councils, what will they do afterwards?’
‘That depends on your actions,’ she admitted. ‘The Night Council is not alone in fearing this new age; even within the Sanctum we have debated what upheaval this will bring, what new course the Gods will set us. The one that sleeps in darkness may be Vanach’s dark heart, but we remain true servants of the Gods. We will allow no man to divert us from the path of the Blessed.’
Isak bit back his instinctive retort. That she seemed to genuinely mean her words somehow disgusted him more. What little they had seen of Vanach hinted at the nation’s dark heart indeed, but that wasn’t Vorizh Vukotic, it was the cruelty they were willing to inflict on their own. Denunciation, starvation, sleep deprivation, torture, mass execution – Shinir had provided the details they couldn’t see as they rode past labour camps and abandoned villages – and the Commissar Brigade were unrepentant.
If Priesan Sorolis recognised the anger on Isak’s scar-twisted cheeks, she gave no indication. Instead she stepped to one side and gestured through the great gate that led into Vanach Settlement. ‘Come my Lord. The remaining tests await you.’
As she gestured, a dozen litters appeared, carried by unarmed soldiers. They were chairs, rather than the beds used in Narkang, but as with Isak’s visit to King Emin’s city, the lead litter was borne by eight large men, twice the usual number of porters, to account for his great weight. The chairs were all intricately decorated; when Isak saw the one intended for him bore stylised black bees of Death, he realised each displayed the totem animal of one of the Gods of the Upper Circle. He matched them in his mind, taking a moment to recognise the seldom-seen white lynx of Alterr and hare of Kitar. More litters were brought up for the Sanctum members, these painted black, with the same designs in gold.
