Aranthur thought of the Ulmaghest that awaited him in Megara.
“People died to bring this to us,” he remembered the Master of Arts saying.
They didn’t mean the spells. They meant the glyphs.
“Still want to be a Lightbringer?” Qna Liras asked.
Aranthur smiled. “Two things I’m not good at. Celibacy, and keeping my sword in its scabbard.”
Qna Liras laughed. “So to speak.”
Aranthur shook his head. “I didn’t mean—”
“There really ought to be more humour in the world,” Qna Liras said. “Listen, Aranthur. The essence of what we call a Lightbringer is a strong desire to do as little harm as possible, while willingly facing what is wrong or evil. Ill-considered actions of any kind can do harm. But we are women and men with lives and needs and desires.”
“Is killing the symptom, not the disease?” Aranthur asked.
The dark-skinned Magos smiled. “I promise you that for the men and women you kill, it’s the disease.” He took a swig from his canteen, and looked up at the Dark Forge. It was almost directly overhead, a stain on the jewelled brilliance of the heavens. “But yes. That is an excellent way of expressing a horrible truth.”
“Killing can be a habit.”
“Indeed. A little violence can appear to solve most problems.” Qna Liras sipped a little more water. “The problem is, sometimes it is the only way. And it does solve some problems.”
“The Pure,” Aranthur said.
Qna Liras shook his head. “I’m not sure. I have a theory… that the Master is one of us. One of the Magi. A man, I assume, as he certainly seems to dislike women. Could be a woman full of self-hatred, but most self-haters can’t master themselves, much less control empires.”
Aranthur could not stop looking at the Dark Forge.
“But really, are we sure we can’t just talk to him? I admit, I’m reasonably sure. If it is possible to know a man by his works, then the being we call ‘The Master’ is a dark bastard indeed. And then we have to ask, would killing him actually change anything? People tend to follow leaders with whom they agree.”
Aranthur nodded. “So the knife edge of which you spoke is about the use of power.”
“Any power,” Qna Liras agreed. “Sex, violence, oratory, magik, birth, family, strength, weakness…” He hung his canteen from his saddle. “I mean, it’s easier to kill with magik than with family connections, but you see where I’m going.”
Aranthur nodded. “How could we talk to the Master?”
Qna Liras looked up at the Dark Forge.
“I have no idea,” he said after a pause.
“Did the Master cause that?” Aranthur’s eyes were also on the Dark Forge.
Qna Liras shook his head. “I doubt that he meant to. Or mayhap he did. If so, he’s more of a fool than I thought.”
“Can we fix it, like Jalu’d said?”
“I knew it was dangerous to start answering your questions. But I like the way you think. I don’t know. I will know more when I see whether this actually happened as I fear. I would like to believe that what we can break, we can repair. I’ll say one thing, one tantalising thing—the Great Moon crossed the sky behind the Dark Forge. You saw?”
“I did.”
“Only that means that the Forge is much smaller than I feared, and much more local. You understand?”
Aranthur nodded. “Geometry.”
“Exactly. The most hopeful thing I’ve seen since the fabric was broken.”
Qna Liras looked away.
Aranthur thought of the small… hole… in reality that he had made when he destroyed one of the stigali.
“Would it heal itself?” he asked.
Qna Liras nodded. “Maybe. But if the General is correct, whoever made it will seek to open it wider.”
With that cold comfort, Aranthur went back to the mundane problems of taking a column across the desert.
“Tomorrow we will have no more fodder for horses,” Vilna said.
“I know,” Aranthur commented. He was looking out across the sea of dunes in the dying light of the fourth day. “I had not expected the Kuh to be so beautiful.”
Vilna nodded. He even smiled.
“Now, to me, this is the most foolish thought ever,” he admitted. “What is beautiful here? I cannot feed my horse, the gravel gets into his hooves, the salt stings his eyes, and there are scorpions when I want to piss.” He shrugged. “But I am glad that you see some beauty in it.”
Aranthur laughed. “I think you just told me that I’m a fool.”
Vilna shrugged. “You do well enough, Bahadur.”
But the fifth evening, Mir Jalu’d found them a small oasis with good grass and a few date palms and even a fig tree—a gigantic fig that looked as if it was as old as the world. The water in the well was fresh and cold.
“Someone ate all the figs and killed the people,” Omga said. He held up a scrap of turban and a broken rein with a brass disc. “Pindaris, or maybe Safians.”
There had been six small houses of baked mud, and all of them had had their roofs caved in; their beams were burnt.
They killed a lame horse, and ate it roasted in fig leaves, to the disgust of their Safians and the delight of the Nomadi. They found enough rice under one of the houses to give everyone a handful. The rest of the mounts cropped the green grass and drank the water.
“I know the way from here,” Qna Liras said. “I used to come here as a boy. There is a temple to the east, in the deep desert, and this is the way station.” He looked sad. “Or it was. Even the Bethuin did not raid these people. But the Pure will kill anything.”
They left at nightfall, travelling south and a little west, following a track. They came rapidly to the belt of mountainous dunes—dunes so high that the riders couldn’t always see the top. In the shifting valleys between the sand mountains, there was no wind, but it was cold.
Qna Liras led the way, with a pair of Nomadi. The huge dunes created a maze of valleys, and twice the entire column had to backtrack out of a dead end, or continue around a vast mound of sand to cross their own trail.
But long after midnight, at the rising of the Ruby, the small red moon, they came down a bank of soft sand, treacherous for their horses, so that they all had to dismount and their boots filled with sand. But when they shuffled clear of the soft sand, they were on a great plain in the cold moonlight of both moons. The huge dunes were left behind, and they were passing over a salt pan with patches of deep gravel.
“A warning,” Qna Liras said. “An immense battle was fought here—men and Jhugj against Dhadhi. With drakes on both sides.” He shrugged. “We have no idea why. But they killed all the life here, for a hundred parasangs. It is in our lessons.”
Aranthur shuddered.
Dahlia shook her head. “This was done by people?” She sighed. “Terrible.”
“Nothing more terrible than people,” the Lightbringer said. “Except maybe the old gods.”
Aranthur walked on, looking at the ground. There were no stones larger than a pebble, as if the very rock had been splintered by the forces unleashed.
After a hundred paces or so, he saw a white stone, no larger than a fingertip, symmetrically shaped like a pointed egg, and he stooped for it. It wasn’t stone.
It was lead.
He held it out to Qna Liras, who took it very carefully.
“These things are always dangerous,” the Lightbringer said. “This is a sling stone—Dhadhian. With a glyph cast into it.”
Very carefully, he rubbed one side of the egg and revealed the glyph, marvellously detailed.
Aranthur put it in the pouch at his waist and walked on, leading Ariadne to give her a rest. He found another, and then a third, and each was different.
Towards morning, they came to the line of hills that separated the plain from the valley of the great river—the Azurnil.
“I’d like to keep going,” Qna Liras said to Aranthur.
Aranthur wonder
ed what would happen if he disagreed. He didn’t feel that he had any authority over the Lightbringer; in fact, he was supposedly escorting the Magos. But he rode to Vilna.
“The horses will make it,” the Nomadi officer said with assurance.
Aranthur nodded. He rode back to the Lightbringer.
“We’ll halt in an hour, as usual, and water the horses,” he said. “After that we can keep going, if there’s fodder at the end.”
The Masran Magos shrugged. “I cannot promise anything. I am… afraid… of what I will see when we crest this set of hills.”
He looked back down the column, where Haran and Hissin were changing horses and bickering in Safiri.
“I’ve become quite fond of all of you,” he said suddenly. “I will do my best to see that no harm comes to you.”
Aranthur felt as if ice water had been poured on his head.
“What do you expect?” he asked.
“I have no idea what to expect. I fear many things. But I will be plain with you. I think that someone has cracked the wards on the Black Pyramid and released something ancient and very, very bad. I am not from the branch of our priests who study the past in detail, but there are… thousands… of beings…” He paused. “The Black Pyramid is a prison for malign entities. We call them the Apep-Duat.”
“How old is the Black Pyramid?” Aranthur asked. And then, fearing to sound foolish, he added, “I mean, I’ve heard of it, of course.”
“Older than humanity,” Qna Liras said. “Older than the Dhadhi.”
“Eagle,” Aranthur said, making the sign. “A prison?”
Qna Liras nodded. “A metaphysikal prison. Older than human beings.”
3
Masr
The sun was rising in the east, its red light burning the Azurnil as they crossed the height of the pass. The broad valley of the Azurnil stretched endlessly before them from horizon to horizon. The river was broader than any river Aranthur had ever seen—so wide that it was more like a Souliote lake than a river.
They could smell the charcoal and the woodsmoke as soon as they crested the pass; there, off to the west, was Al-Khaire. The city itself was enormous. It seemed larger than Megara, bounded only on the side of the Azurnil and spreading out over the fertile plain and almost into the desert on its northern side. In the centre was a mighty acropolis crowned with gold-roofed temples and massive spires visible even from a parasang away. The lower slopes of the acropolis were shrouded in fog. Or smoke.
“My city is on fire,” Qna Liras said.
Aranthur could hear the fear in the Lightbringer’s voice.
Across the river from the city, which was hidden in a pall of smoke, stood the pyramids. There were dozens, but five stood above the others at this distance: four white pyramids in an uneven square, and the fifth, the largest of all, its darkness lit by the rising sun.
“It is as I feared,” Qna Liras said.
His voice was dead, emotionless, and his veiled face was without the least sign of an expression.
“How can you tell?” Mir Jalu’d asked.
“The Black Pyramid neither emits nor reflects light in its proper state. Look at the reflection of the sun… Never mind. There is no more time for talk. We must ride.”
“Change horses!” Aranthur said. “Water up!”
The column halted, and all the people slid to the sand and began the process of getting water from canteens into horses.
Qna Liras fretted. “Can’t we…?”
Aranthur bowed. “Syr, you clearly feel we are in danger. If the danger is mundane enough to be faced by troopers on horseback, the horses need to be as fresh and well watered as we can manage.”
Qna Liras smiled wryly.
“I will restrain my impatience,” he said. But his eyes were on Al-Khaire.
As soon as the column was ready, Vilna waved.
“Remember,” Aranthur said, “we are a caravan from Armea, not an army.”
“None of that matters now,” Qna Liras said. “Please, let us go.”
Aranthur looked up and down the column.
“Our Lightbringer expects danger,” he said. “Everyone be ready—puffers primed, swords loose in your scabbards.”
The column rippled in the new sun as men and women drew their puffers. Omga took his bow from his scabbard and put three arrows in his belt. Dahlia nodded and rolled the rings on her fingers. Aranthur had come to know that this meant she was preparing her aspis.
Sasan rode over. “Listen,” he said.
Aranthur was watching the valley. “All ears.”
“My lads have proven themselves. They deserve puffers. Right now they have nothing but their swords.”
He nodded in the direction of Kalij, who was looking at his sabre.
Aranthur didn’t turn his head. He was watching a plume of smoke or fog that seemed to move with a will of its own.
“Vilna!” he called.
“Blessed Twelve, can’t you make a decision without asking that nomad?” Sasan snapped.
“No. Vilna, I’d like to give puffers to the Safian riders. What do you think?”
Vilna crossed his hands on his cantle and leant forward, his eyes narrowing. He was silent for a moment.
“Yes,” he said.
“Good.” Aranthur looked over the column. “Anyone with more than two puffers, give one to a Safian.” He smiled. “You will be repaid.”
Vilna laughed. “Never. But it’s a nice thought.”
Nonetheless, Chimeg handed Haran a silver mounted puffer with a long barrel. Omga had five of the weapons, and he handed over two. The Nomadi shared freely; in moments all the Safians had one, and Haran had a pair.
Despite Qna Liras’ glaring, Aranthur thought that it was a moment for something to be said, or done. So he rode among the Safians and exchanged a handclasp with each man.
Haran bowed and put the back of his hand to his forehead.
“Bahadur,” he said, “we will not disappoint.”
The others mumbled.
Aranthur turned his horse.
“Gods only know what we’re facing. Listen for orders.”
He trotted to the head of the column.
“A handful of pistol balls will not stop an ancient evil,” Qna Liras said.
Aranthur shrugged. “A little trust might save a lot of lives. Now we can go.”
Qna Liras said nothing. He simply touched his heels to his horse, and they started down into the valley of the Azurnil. The sun rose behind them, and the waters of the great river lost the touch of the great fire and began to reflect the blue of the heavens, as their name implied. The smell of smoke grew.
When they reached the base of the ridge, the road suddenly improved immensely. It was wide, built of neatly jointed stones, and covered in mud and gravel held by marble kerbstones.
Ansu pointed at the kerb.
“Very nice,” he said. “Civilised, even.”
The column began to move faster. Aranthur sent out four Nomadi under Omga. They spread wide across the fields of gravel, but before the first bend in the road, the gravel had given way to cultivated fields with irrigation ditches. The road ran across the fields, through a long alley of shading date palms, and bypassed a village.
There were no people working the fields.
Aranthur couldn’t find the patch of fog he’d seen from the height of the ridge. But his eyes went everywhere—up and down, over every field, every stand of trees.
Qna Liras rode ahead.
Batu, one of Omga’s scouts, galloped back from the direction of the village.
“Dead mens,” he called out in Byzas. “Ugly. Ugly.”
Aranthur followed him, with Dahlia at his heels, and he raised his magesight. But first he saluted Vilna and pointed at the Lightbringer, who was already ahead.
“Guard him. Hold him back if you must.”
“Yes, syr,” Vilna said. He obviously agreed.
The latent sihr was everywhere. Aranthur was confused at first, until
he realised that the power was in the corpses, and the corpses were in every house—a hundred or more.
He reined in, and pointed to Dahlia, but she already knew.
“Potnia!” she swore. “Is this the Pure? More of these despicable Pindaris?”
The village was surrounded by a high mud-brick wall, but the gate was open, smashed in by a force so great that it had collapsed the basalt pillars that anchored it. They lay, toppled, across low buildings they’d smashed in their fall.
The little village was like an abattoir that had been left uncleaned for a few days. Bodies lay strewn about, as if thrown by the hand of a giant. Aranthur’s sight told him there were dozens more in the warren of whitewashed mud-brick buildings.
“This place could be full of traps,” he said. “But the sihr tastes different from that in Armea.”
Dahlia looked at Ansu, who waved a hand, as if dismissing the protest of a friend. A single butterfly—or perhaps an emanation shaped like a butterfly—emerged from his hand. Its wings beat, and it rose in the foul air.
“I do not see a stigal,” Dahlia said.
“We need to keep moving,” Qna Liras said.
He rode up with Vilna at his heels. Vilna made a motion with his hand, as if to say “nothing I could do.”
Aranthur nodded. “I don’t like leaving this behind me.” He gestured at the corpses and the pools of malevolent sorcery.
“It’s…” Qna Liras shrugged. “We are very vulnerable here. At least it is daylight. Look, Aranthur. The Black Pyramid is broken. Something—or some things—have escaped. The Apep-Duat. They will be… hungry… after many thousands of years…”
Dahlia backed her horse.
“Lovely,” she said. “We go all the best places.” She glanced at Aranthur. “Arry, I’m not sure we’re up to facing some ancient evil with a column of cavalry.”
He nodded.
Qna Liras shook his head. “I will try to protect you.”
Aranthur thought, briefly, that they were supposed to be going to Antioke by the most rapid route. He wondered if the Masran Magos had ever intended them to reach their destination.
He wondered if he should use his remaining message sticks, but this didn’t seem the moment.
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