by Chris Moss
“Do you see that, lad?” said Mollis pointing out to the horizon. “We’re almost home.”
Looking out beyond the prow, Kestel made out several angular blobs. He’d been told the largest one would be their destination. “That’s the Island of Caelbor?”
“Yes,” said Arbalis, the old soldier’s shoulders finally starting to relax. “Home at last.”
Spying the island’s details, Kestel’s amazement grew with every inch they drew closer to port. Across the island’s horizon, a metropolis stretched, dozens of ships of varying sizes plying their trade across the busy shipping lanes. A hilly landscape, Caelbor’s major port lay at the foot of gray cliffs on its northernmost shores. Disembarking from the Actuarius, Kestel marveled at the shape of the city’s wide stone archways and linked towers, their gazes piercing the far shores. The port bustled with movement everywhere he looked—warehouses, markets, and workshops spilling crowds out into wide stairways that ran up the city streets.
Perched high above the teeming docks, like an eagle over lesser beasts, stood a black and white dome. Flawless and clean, the structure broke through the skyline. Beneath the imposing structure, a multitude of lesser vaults and buildings took up almost a quarter of the city itself, connected by a web of plazas, hallways and bridges.
No matter where Kestel looked among the maze of black and white buildings, he couldn’t find the dilapidated wrecks or burnt out warehouses he grew up with in the Old Capital.
“What is this?” he said in amazement.
“That, Kestel, is the New Citadel, spiritual home of the Exsilium, guardian of the Caelbor, beloved of all the angels.” Arbalis’s voice remained low and reverent. “This is where your future awaits.”
“And now we find out if you’re worth anything,” said Calla.
Her dark words made Kestel shiver, despite the splendor before him.
3
Prelate Niena has been inquiring about the location of a certain text from the Outer Coast. So far, she has been unable to obtain it through the Citadel’s libraries and has commissioned a Merchant Minor to travel to Paeladon to visit a scholar there.
Additional note: The Merchant works for Driessan Associates, of which Sir Franklin, liegeman to Lord Rowan, is a member.
~from a report to Spymaster Harpalus, undated~
“I can’t breathe!” said Kestel, struggling to stay still inside a grain sack. Mollis’s shoulders digging into his ribs didn’t help either.
“Shaddup.” Calla’s disembodied voice accompanied a sudden pain in Kestel’s shoulder.
Kestel cursed all ironsides under his breath and tried not to cough, the grain sack scratching his face and arms. Kestel had worried he would be brought through the city in a cage, as sometimes happened with criminals in Maal’s courts, but they weren’t heading toward the domes in the distance.
The sack had been Arbalis’s idea. After a quiet word to Mollis, the large soldier had scooped Kestel up in a sack and flung him over a broad shoulder. He had tried counting steps and turns, but between the noise of the docks and the winding streets, he had lost all direction.
After what seemed like hours, Mollis dumped Kestel on the floor. He scrambled out of the coarse sack, brushing stray wheat grains out of his hair. He was surprised to find he had not been imprisoned in a dungeon, but a taken to a simple, whitewashed basement. Lit by a flickering torch, the room was bare except for a few crates. Arbalis and his soldiers acted at ease, removing their cloaks to reveal sparkling armor beneath.
“You alright?” said Arbalis. At Kestel’s nod, the bronzed veteran turned to the other two. “Go get yourselves something to eat and take a bath. We’ll meet up in the barracks later.”
Calla snapped a salute and left, not giving Kestel a backward glance. Mollis, however, leaned over, the torchlight flickering off a dozen reflections in the olive-skinned giant’s armor.
“Just answer everything truthfully. You’ll be fine.”
Kestel stomach knotted at the sight of the big man moving away. He stood alone among the wooden crates, but his pride wasn’t willing to call Mollis back.
“Alright, show yourself, you creeping bastard,” Arbalis said, addressing the quivering shadows.
“Why, Commander, I never knew you cared.”
Kestel gasped and spun about. Behind him, a figure detached himself from the gloom. He stepped forward and gave a mocking bow. Arbalis’s growl drew Kestel’s attention back to the old soldier. He saw a stark contrast between the pair. Where Arbalis’s short, muscular form was encased in armor, the newcomer’s dark, silk robe hung in long folds from a thin, skeletal body. The man’s lean, sharp face wore a small beard, his gaze holding a certain birdlike intensity. Kestel could recognize the differences between a pale Caelbor and a bronze-skinned Exsilium, but this strange figure seemed to stand somewhere in between.
“Harpalus,” said Arbalis, his tone curt.
Kestel marked the way the two men tensed up in each other’s presence, recognizing a mutual respect, but no love lost between the pair.
The slim figure nodded and looked at Kestel. “And this, I take it, is the prize of our quest?”
“Yes,” said Arbalis. “He is a soldier, formerly—”
“A member of the Divine Guard of the Old Capital under Commander Philotus—now deceased,” the gaunt figure said, cutting him off. Harpalus’s cold eyes bore into Kestel. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Kestel. I’m glad to find you’ve been eating.”
His knowledge amazed Kestel. He had barely been off the docks for an hour and this stranger already seemed to know everything about him. Harpalus swung a piercing gaze back to the old soldier.
“Commander, you reported to the docks with only two of your men.”
“Almost a dozen were lost retrieving this man from execution,” said Arbalis, a note of warning in his voice.
“We cannot afford to lose that many Praetoria in every mission.”
“You ordered me to fetch him from the hydra’s maw! What did you expect?”
The rising anger in the room had Kestel’s instincts looking for an exit. A deep throb enveloped his forehead, stopping all thoughts of escape. Taking a few faltering steps, he fell face-first into the dirty straw and had to be helped up by Arbalis.
Harpalus raised an eyebrow. “Withdrawal symptoms—just as we feared.”
“Shut up!” said Arbalis. “He’s been tortured, exiled, and almost executed. He’s still confused.”
Harpalus’s theatrical shrug left no doubt to how much he didn’t care. “If you say so. Come, my addled young friend, it’s time to meet your benefactor.”
“What?” said Kestel, still fighting the dull throb in his brain.
Arbalis sighed. “We’re going to see the Silver Prioress.”
After an endless series of tunnels and stairways, Kestel emerged with the other two from a small wooden door set behind a heavy tapestry. Harpalus pulled the cloth aside. Kestel blinked in the sudden light, making out a wide, airy room overlooking the ocean.
I didn’t think that many books could exist.
Scrolls and tomes covered everywhere he looked, stored in long mahogany bookcases or piled around the room. A few embers stirred in a silver fireplace set into the far wall, next to which an old armchair and table had been placed. The table overflowed with papers, books, and maps, several bearing complex wax seals or red ribbons. Poking out between the stacks, a steaming bowl of stew cooled next to a wine jug. Rounding the long table with Arbalis, the armchair’s occupant caught Kestel’s attention. A bald, old woman sat, reading through a thick document and jotting the occasional note in the margins.
This is the Silver Prioress—the ruler of the ironsides?
Kestel had expected a proud, haughty figure. The Prioress of the New Citadel, however, was emaciated, her frail olive skin almost lost in her voluminous cream robes. Purple veins stood out on the old woman’s hands and temples. Her face, though noble, held many deep lines. Nonetheless, she looked up from her
work at Kestel, a quiet strength hovering just below the surface.
“At last you are here.” The Silver Prioress squinted at Kestel, her brow wrinkling. “I have been waiting for such a long time.” The woman’s deep voice didn’t match her withered body.
Arbalis bowed and opened his mouth, but Kestel stepped forward.
“Why am I here?” His question earned him a dangerous look from the soldier.
The Prioress steepled her knotted hands and regarded him with old, old eyes. “I’m not sure you’re ready to know. To start with though, you can tell me a little about yourself.”
The old woman’s evasiveness brought a twinge of worry. Kestel looked to Arbalis for support, but the soldier glared and nodded for him to answer the question.
“There’s not much to tell,” Kestel said. “I’m nothing special, if that’s what you’re looking for. I’m a soldier, a member of the Divine Guard that protected the Godde—Lychra Maal.” He would never address that evil woman as a Goddess, ever again. “I can’t burn people with acid or recover from any wound like the Immortals.”
“I wouldn’t have sent for you if you were.” The old woman smiled. “Start from the beginning.”
Kestel grimaced, pushing down the darkness of his earliest memories. “I ran away from my mother when I was little. She always had men around, and they used to get angry and beat me. I don’t know how old I was.” Even after all these years, he still struggled to talk about it. “I stayed in old abandoned places with other boys and girls. We lived off the middens for food—I got used to being hungry. At night, there would be ten of us sleeping together in an old warehouse for warmth. But we looked out for each other.”
“A hard start to life,” said the Prioress. “When did you become a soldier?”
Kestel fidgeted under her gaze––he couldn’t bear her stare. He focused on the whitewashed walls instead. “That happened later. When I was older—about fifteen, I think—I killed a man. A soldier.” Kestel peeked out from under his brow, but saw no response from the old woman.
“He was a bully,” Kestel said, unable to stop the anger from trickling into his voice. “He had armor and a sword, and liked to wander around the city hurting boys, or doing worse to the girls. We placed trash around the door so we could hear him coming. But one day, I found him in my hideout, beating up the others.”
A painful, hot ball grew under his breastbone. No matter which way he twisted, he couldn’t seem to shift it.
“I killed him,” he finally said. “I had a piece of scrap metal I used for cutting purses, and I was always quick—even then. He turned on me, and when he swung his sword, I shoved the cutter through his throat. He bled everywhere.”
“What happened next?” said the Prioress.
Shaking his head free of the past, Kestel cleared his throat and continued. “A few days later, other soldiers came looking for him. Like a fool, I had taken the scraps of mail and the sword. And when they found us...”
“They hurt your friends?” The Prioress’s voice betrayed no emotion, but it was still probing.
Kestel shook his head. “They butchered them. It turned out the soldier was a member of the Divine Guard—the best soldiers the city had to offer. When I found out what they’d done, I fought back, but I was so blindly angry I didn’t manage to kill anyone. They were trained and ready for me, but Commander Philotus saw I had talent.”
“So, you joined them?” said Arbalis, his manner, as always, taciturn.
“It was either that or spend the rest of my life in chains,” said Kestel, his voice as cold and dead as the memories of his past. “Philotus was a ferocious bastard, but after a while I grew to respect him. I kept the sword and learned some tricks from the soldiers I watched. I wore armor, adding to my scraps with each man I killed. I got food every day, women when I wanted them—Bloodwyne, too.”
“How did the Bloodwyne affect you?” The Prioress’s probing tone sounded almost urgent.
Kestel thought for a long while before responding. “The mix we were given was far from pure. It gave you strength, of a sort, and it made you feel really alive for an hour or so after. If you took enough, you’d barely need to eat for days. But most of the men just took it to get hard, not to get any sort of power.”
“But you weren’t interested in the blood rituals.”
“Not at first,” said Kestel. “I never really thought of Maal’s Immortals as something I’d want to join. I watched Immortals kill other guardsmen with poison or acid just for looking at them wrong. I was there for a different reason—”
“You were someone important,” the Prioress said, answering for him, “someone with position, recognized as being above the common mob.”
“Yes! I was. I was talented. Everyone knew it. I was to be part of the honor guard of the Goddess—present at all the rituals. Someday, I was going to replace Philotus as the Commander.”
“But that never happened.”
“No!” Kestel’s rising tone spilled over into anger. “I was betrayed. By that sneaky bastard Demetros! He could never have held onto his position through his own strength. Instead, he killed the man who took me in, and placed the blame on me. He has his eyes set on becoming an Immortal.”
“So, they stripped you of your rank,” said Arbalis.
The ball of pain in Kestel’s chest tightened, and his hands shook. “Stripped me of my rank? They hung me up on a wall and took turns beating me until I had to beg them to stop. I don’t know how long it was—I kept passing out after the first day.” He tried to shake his head free of the memory, but the images kept trickling back—the chains, the endless pain, the blood staining the knuckles of the men in the room...
The Prioress’s words took a solemn tone. “And when you appealed to Lychra Maal, the Goddess who represented all your hopes—”
“She betrayed me!” Kestel turned away, upsetting stacks of books and scrolls. “I would have given her anything! But instead she congratulated Demetros for his cleverness! She lied! About everything! The entire city is falling down around her ears, and she just acts like it’s all part of some great plan!” Unable to contain himself any longer, Kestel stomped over to the wide stone balcony and looked out over the port.
“It is,” said the Silver Prioress, her response cryptic. Kestel struggled to focus on her words.
His deep red anger did not want to be contained, no matter how much he tried to push it down into his belly. Neither could his spinning head shake the odd sensation that others stood around him—besides the Prioress and Arbalis. These others seemed somehow out of reach, but no less real. Kestel tried to focus on the sensation, but Arbalis’s calloused hand on his shoulder made it slip away.
“You have too much bitterness in you, young man.” The olive-skinned, old woman sighed. “Although, you are correct, Maal is a charlatan. She has an incredible source of magical power, but she is no more a God than you or I.”
Silent, Kestel willed the hollow pain sitting just below the surface, to go away. Blinking away tears, Kestel focused on the flocks of white gulls flying over the blue sea until he could turn to face the emaciated figure without his voice breaking.
“Why am I here?” he said again. “If you want my help against the Go—against Maal, you’ve got it. But why me?”
The Silver Prioress remained silent for a long moment.
“I wish to speak to you about Gods and angels.” Her whispered words made the hair on Kestel’s neck prickle.
The Prioress leaned back, her blank gaze focused on no one in the room. “Once, the rivers, forests, and mountains of the continent were ruled by powerful beasts—fell creatures with breath of fire or ice that blotted out the sun as they flew. Some say they were cunning and cruel. Other stories regard them as wise guardians that faithfully defended the lands under their control. Eventually, one rose above the others—the most powerful, but the most savage. A hydra who slaughtered his more benign brethren and ruled as a God. Stories of Musmahu the Immortal exist across t
he whole of the northern continent, and his rule was every bit as oppressive as Maal’s.”
Kestel’s brow creased. “I’ve never heard of any of these stories.”
“You probably have,” said Arbalis. “But over the last hundred years they’ve become mixed with the stories of Maal’s beast.”
At the mention of the hydra, Kestel’s mind flashed back to what he had seen in the Amphitheater—the long scars running down the silvery coils where Maal had bled her prisoner for a century.
“In any case,” said the Prioress, “Musmahu did not rule unchallenged. Our earliest legend tells of a hero named Aedron who eventually ended Musmahu’s rule—empowered by a being of light who guided the hero’s footsteps.”
“How?”
“By granting Aedron the Authority of a Herald.”
Despite the seriousness of the old woman’s tone, Kestel snorted in derision. “What’s a Herald? And how is authority a useful power?”
“That’s the point, young man,” whispered the Prioress. “The Herald is one who has no power at all. None. But, a Herald can bind both heaven and earth to their Authority, as long as the cause is just. When Aedron faced Musmahu, he summoned the Angel, which fought the beast with a fiery sword until the hydra was finally defeated.”
“It’s a great magic, then?” said Kestel, confused. “One that can make everything you wish for come true?”
“No,” said the old woman, shaking her head. “All authority, even the Authority of a Herald, has limits. After the battle, Aedron instilled a great power in his followers and thus the Citadel was founded—a place of education, healing, and governance. Aedron passed away, but his followers continued to wield the power he bestowed them, and devoted their lives to his teachings.”
“I’ve heard of your magic,” said Kestel, his defiant glare strained at the old woman. “The power to cloud thoughts and make men go mad.”
