by D. P. Prior
Gaston glimpsed another movement in his peripheral vision. He didn’t dare look, but sensed an icy presence come to rest behind him. Cadman’s eyes darted fleetingly in that direction before he continued.
‘Things are not always as they seem, Gaston. Take me, for example. How old would you say I am?’
Gaston shrugged. ‘Fifty? Sixty?’
‘Twenty times that, at the very least,’ Cadman replied, his form withering, dissolving as he spoke. Flesh melted away, leaving leathery strips hanging from a mottled skeleton, and Cadman’s fine clothes gave way to tattered robes dappled with mildew.
Gaston gagged and took a step back. Something cold touched his shoulder and he turned to see ember eyes glaring at him from the slit of a great helm. Where the body should have been, a coil of black mist twisted like a corkscrew, coalescing into the form of a tall man in a yellowish-white surcoat above rusty mail, a faded red Monas just visible on the breast.
‘Remain still,’ it hissed.
‘You have nothing to fear from us, Gaston,’ the creature that had been Cadman said in a grating voice. ‘I wish only to show you how appearances can be deceptive. History, too, can deceive us, for it is seldom written without bias. The Lost did not fall prey to evil, they served it. Their mission to Sahul afforded them the opportunity to flee from that evil, but they underestimated the reach of the Ipsissimus’s malevolence. Isn’t that right, Callixus?’
The wraith paused before answering, and when it spoke the words were carefully measured. ‘My knights and I were damned for failing to carry out the Ipsissimus’s command. We were cursed to an eternity of undeath beneath this very barrow.’
‘Indeed,’ Cadman said. ‘You see, Gaston, we have the Lost to thank for the fact that Sahul isn’t just another part of Nousia.’
‘The Ipsissimus sent the Elect to aid Pardes,’ Gaston said, ‘not to spearhead the conquest of Sahul.’ His mind was reeling with the consequences of believing what he was hearing. Cadman had to be lying, otherwise what did that say about Shader and the White Order? What did it say about Dad? Gaston himself? He winced as his mind replayed what he’d done to Rhiannon; the attack on the Imperial troops outside Sarum. By their fruit you will recognize them, it said in the Liber. Was the Templum condemned by its own scriptures? The Ipsissimus a tool of the Demiurgos?
‘He is the Father of Lies,’ Cadman said, jaw clacking, empty eye-sockets boring into Gaston, pleading for understanding; demanding it. ‘Why do you think the Emperor fears the Templum so much? He knows what the Ipsissimus is planning.’
‘The Emperor’s a paranoid nut,’ Gaston said. ‘Everyone knows that.’
‘But where did that rumour start?’ Cadman held up a bony finger. ‘Ask yourself, my dear Gaston, why it is that the priests of the Templum of the Knot suffer no ill effects from the plague and yet even your own knights, who would no doubt be considered heretics by Aeterna, grow sick. And let’s not forget your founder, the great and holy Deacon Shader, who would have discarded his vows for the flesh of a woman. How deeply do you think he could have held his convictions? You will have noticed, too, that Shader bares no buboes, no putrid sores, no hacking cough. Where do you think this plague comes from? Could it be that Hagalle’s not quite so paranoid after all?’
‘What is it you want?’ Gaston asked, head pounding, thoughts breaking up like waves over rocks.
‘I want to free you, Gaston, from the deceptions of the evil one.’
‘You…can…trust the Doctor,’ the wraith whispered, voice harsh with effort. ‘He…rescued me…from this tomb. He will awaken…awaken my knights.’ Callixus lost some of his substance, and the glare faded from his eyes.
‘Callixus is right,’ Cadman said. ‘I have revealed this to you,’ he indicated his decomposing body, ‘to show that I hold no secrets. This is as I am, afflicted by the Ipsissimus’s curse. It was envy that drove him to treat me so, for I discovered that which his vile religion was impotent to bestow: immortality.’
‘You are immortal?’ Gaston asked, thoughts racing with too many questions; hopes and fears mixing, separating, mixing again.
‘Thanks to the Reckoning. I would have remained perfect of body also were it not for the curse of that evil hierophant lurking at the heart of Nousia.’ Cadman gripped Gaston’s shoulders with skeletal fingers. ‘I can grant you this same gift of immortality, real eternal life and not just some poetic promise that will amount to nothing but decay and oblivion. All I ask in return is that you aid me in my work.’
‘What work?’ Snatches of past conversations, the words of scripture, faces, feelings, regrets—so many regrets—swirled around Gaston’s mind in a whirlpool of confusion.
‘I seek the power behind the Reckoning: the Statue of Eingana. Already I have two of its components. The others, I fear, are in the hands of the servants of the evil one. Gaston, if we can reassemble the statue, we can dispel this curse of the Ipsissimus’s and enjoy the true gift of immortality of the flesh. This is what the ancient Paters meant by the resurrection of the body. This! Not the diluted half-truths offered by the creature who now sits on the throne of Aeterna.’
‘I don’t know,’ Gaston said, reeling with everything he’d heard. He felt like the world had tipped on its axis; like he’d just been struck by lightning. ‘I need to think.’
‘And so you shall, my friend, for the choice must be yours. I will not sink to the methods of enticement employed by so-called Nousians. First, however, will you accompany us into this barrow, seeing as my driver has finished digging?’
The driver had opened up a hole in the side of the hill that was just about large enough for Cadman’s skeletal frame to duck down and scuttle through. Gaston followed at a crouch, but Callixus’s ghostly body merely glided through the mound as if it weren’t there. Once inside, there was more headroom, but it was black as the grave. They stood upon a hard, ungiving floor, the air dank and dusty. Gaston heard a click, and the patch of floor immediately in front of them was illuminated. Cadman was holding a slender tube that shone with the glow of a hundred candles, revealing badly subsided flagstones with veins of silver glinting through the cracks. In response to Gaston’s bemused look, he shrugged and aimed the light at the walls and ceiling.
‘I’m surprised it still works. I’ve had it for an eternity. You just can’t get craftsmanship like this anymore.’
They were in a smooth-walled corridor with a peeling fresco of sigils and words in a script Gaston didn’t recognize. Cadman looked as if he were about to explain, but then thought better of it and motioned Gaston further along the corridor until they reached an intersection. Ignoring the continuing tunnel and its off-shoots, Cadman took a couple of careful steps backwards, muttered something under his breath, and then let out a hiss of satisfaction as the floor before him parted to reveal a spiralling metal stairwell.
‘This is the way,’ he said with a joviality that would have better suited his fat form. ‘The ground level is for the uninvited—grave robbers, and worse. You wouldn’t want to be wandering around it by yourself, believe me. Pits and spikes, gas and darts. You name it, you’ll find it. Whole level’s a veritable death-trap.’
‘What is this place?’ Gaston asked, shuddering at the thought of going down the stairs.
‘Once a kind of ship,’ Cadman said. ‘But now a sort of warehouse, preserving that which I hold most dear. It’s been somewhat redundant these past few centuries, but does make an excellent…what would you say, Callixus? Barracks? Tomb?’
Callixus didn’t reply, but his spectral body rippled as they began the steep and winding descent.
The bare bones of Cadman’s feet clattered and scraped on the narrow steps, followed by the resounding clang of Gaston’s boots. Callixus made no sound, but drifted like a dark cloud, his fiery eyes glowing brighter with anticipation. The further they descended, the thicker the cobwebs grew, clogged with chips of masonry and the husks of tiny insects. Cadman’s strange lantern illuminated only the three or four feet before him.
To the rear, except for the burning coals of Callixus’s eyes, Gaston could make out nothing but impenetrable darkness. And so he followed Cadman deeper and deeper beneath the earth, feeling every bit like a lamb led to the slaughter, but not really having much choice, the way he saw it. He shuddered to think what would become of him if he refused to go on, and besides, his curiosity was aroused. He needed to see this for himself; and he needed some time to think about all that Cadman had told him.
The stairwell wound downwards forever. Gaston’s knees ached and his heart thumped, either from the effort or his mounting fear. Finally, they reached a tunnel of polished silver so shiny their reflections followed them along the walls, ceiling, and floor. They rounded a dogleg and Cadman stopped, shining his glowing cylinder on a door-sized panel. He raised a bony hand to a small rectangular protrusion and slid it across to reveal rows of numbered black studs. He tapped in a sequence and exhaled with relief as the metal door emitted a rush of air and rose.
It opened onto an immense black-metal cavern filled with gently swirling mist that was backlit by a bluish glow. Within the mist, wreathed in its tendrils, Gaston saw the shadowy forms of mounted knights, swords drawn, horses rearing or in mid-turn. He gasped as he took in the sheer size of the chamber and the army it housed. Ain, there had to be at least two hundred men and horses.
Cadman led him up close to a rider and shone his lantern on it. The armour was intact, but brittle and rusted, the once white cloak encrusted with age. The horse beneath the knight was little more than a skeleton held together by rotting ligaments. Cadman reached up and gently pulled the rider towards him so that he could raise its visor. All that remained of the knight’s face was a brownish skull with empty cavities where once there had been eyes. Gaston was startled by a low groan and turned to see that it had come from Callixus.
‘Don’t worry, my friend,’ Cadman said, ‘all will be well. With these pieces of the Statue of Eingana I have enough power to raise the entire force. You must believe me when I say I would have done so before, but I lacked the means.’
Callixus said nothing, so Cadman continued.
‘It has been all I could do to maintain my fleshly form and stave off death these past few centuries. The residue of magic left in the wake of the Reckoning has greatly diminished. If I could have brought back your knights sooner, I would have.’
Callixus nodded but Gaston thought it was a sinister gesture, full of foreboding.
Cadman took two glowing amber pieces from his pocket. ‘You will excuse me,’ he said to Gaston, ‘but what I am about to do requires a great deal of concentration. It’s not enough to simply will these things. The necromantic arts go somewhat against the natural bias of Eingana.’
Cadman laid the pieces on the floor, produced a piece of chalk from his tattered garments, and began to draw complex symbols on the flagstones. After some minutes, he stood and walked to the edge of the chamber, where he proceeded to draw a vast triangle about the knights. When he’d finished, he collected the pieces from the centre and gestured Gaston and Callixus to the outside of the triangle. Holding the amber pieces aloft, he began to chant in a low, sonorous voice that echoed about the walls to the accompaniment of a chilling sibilance. Reddish light spread through the chamber, emanating from the eye sockets of the mounted skeletons. Slowly, painfully it seemed, joints that can’t have been used for centuries began to creak and move.
Gaston was transfixed, horribly fascinated by the jerky animation, the cracking of dry bones, the squeaking links of ancient armour. A rumbling sound started, and the entire chamber began to shake. The noise rose in pitch and volume, whining and growling, the floor pitching, walls shuddering. Within a matter of moments, the room stilled and the noise whirred softly into silence.
Cadman walked to the centre of the milling skeletal horses, the pieces of amber like molten lava in his hands. ‘Welcome back,’ he said, ‘my knights of the Lost.’
The riders turned their helmeted heads towards Callixus, who merely nodded.
Cadman suddenly bent double and thrust the amber pieces into the tatters of his robe. He looked frantically from side to side, as if he expected to be struck at any moment. Slowly, vertebra by vertebra, he straightened up and sidled closer to Callixus, moving together with him through the ranks of the knights until he stood before the wall opposite the stairwell. He ran his hand over the surface and located a concealed panel. Thrusting it inwards and twisting, he stood back as a crack appeared in the centre of the wall and parted with a hiss to reveal a ramp leading down to the dark woodland beyond. Gaston followed Cadman outside.
The burial mound had gone, replaced by an enormous black dome that jutted from the ground, its surface flecked with sparkling green, great piles of freshly dislodged earth around its base. He was about to ask for an explanation when a terrific clatter came from back within the dome. Cadman pulled him to one side, claw-like fingers digging into Gaston’s flesh. Callixus emerged and drifted down the ramp, a deafening wall of sound following as the knights of the Lost returned to the world of the living.
REJUVENATION
Ipsissimus Theodore eased himself onto a stool, throat burning with bile, lungs pained from the prolonged coughing fit. Spots of bright crimson stained his white vestments, and the stench of decay filled his nostrils. He knew he didn’t have long until the consumption killed him and yet there were weeks to go until the fleet reached Sahul. He wished he could just give in, let the illness take him, send him on his way to a new and enduring life, but the timing was wrong. He needed to reach Sahul, although he was not quite sure why. Eingana wanted him there, he assumed. Whatever that meant.
Of course, there were other possibilities—he’d considered them all. One of the advantages of being at sea—probably the only advantage—was that he had some respite from the endless meetings, services, visits, blessings; the infighting. Ain only knew what headway Exemptus Silvanus and his supporters were making in Theodore’s absence. But at least he was out of it for now, free to spend as much time as he needed in prayer and discernment. Eingana: a snake goddess worshipped by the Dreamers. Theodore ran his thumb over the amber eye of his pectoral Monas. An angel or a demon in the mythology of the Templum. Some said she was one of the children of Nous, but Liber scholars for once agreed that this was a later interpolation. Either she was from Ain or the Demiurgos. How could you tell? How could you know what action to take? What was it Luminary Narcus used to say about such things? If they are from Ain, ignore them: Ain has other ways and means of seeing his will done. If they are from the Demiurgos, ignore them: they are deceptions designed to trap the soul. And if they should come from the self, still ignore them: they are either wishful thinking or unacknowledged manipulations, manifestations of the human inclination to control, to be master of all things. The human desire to be Ain.
Theodore’s chest tightened and he bent double, coughing into his fist. He retched, nausea rising in a relentless press until finally the blockage shifted and he was left staring at a viscous clot of blood covering his hand.
The desire to be Ain. Wasn’t that everybody’s dream, really, when you broke it down—all the prayers, meditations, the wars, the…political manoeuvring at the heart of the Templum? Was it such a bad thing, to be in absolute control of one’s environment? In control of one’s own life, free from fear, free from decay…free from suffering?
Even now he could feel the weight of the amber eye staring from the head of the Monas. It had grown heavier the further they sailed from Aeterna, the nearer they came to Sahul. It was not an entirely uncomfortable heaviness. It was rather as if it were trying to draw attention to itself. As he pondered the Monas’s single eye, Theodore thought he saw a spark within. He looked closer and the amber began to glow.
‘What is it? What are you trying to tell me?’
The eye brightened, as if it housed a miniature sun. The golden Monas encasing it started to vibrate.
‘Power,’ Theodore whispered. He had felt power from the Monas
before, but this time it seemed like it was goading him—or encouraging him.
Theodore frowned and placed his right hand over the Monas. Huntsman had warned him about this; warned him not to use the eye. Someone, or something, might be drawn to its power, he used to say, but then at their last meeting he’d been more direct: Sektis Gandaw, the infamous Technocrat who’d had an iron grip over most of the world back before the Reckoning. Probably been as close to becoming Ain as anyone had got either before or since. Closer even than Blightey. Was it Sektis Gandaw who’d been invading his dreams, or was it some as yet unrevealed horror? The Demiurgos, perhaps? Theodore allowed himself a wry smile at that. Or maybe it was just his own mind, deluded by sickness, seeking a heroic struggle for what was, to all intents and purposes, entirely mundane. There was nothing particularly heroic about rotting away from the inside, in spite of what the Paters would have you believe.
The eye pulsed rapidly, its light blinding. Theodore shut his eyes, feeling sharp stabs of heat in his brain. Stabs that became a gentle warmth melting away all doubt and indecision, driving away confusion and granting him perfect clarity. The eye wanted him to live—needed him to live—he knew that now. It was offering to cure him, to give him the strength to go on, to reach Sahul and whatever Ain had in mind for him. And it was Ain, he understood on some deeper level. He was sure of it. Glad of it, too. Relieved he could be the instrument of his lord and not have to rely on his own imperfect judgement.
Theodore made a fist around the Monas, sighed, and permitted the healing. The relief was sublime. He hadn’t appreciated just how much his body had suffered. Tears dampened his face, and he inhaled a great rush of air with lungs that no longer burned. Salty air. Sea air. Even his limbs felt looser, free of rheumatic pain and tension. He rose from the stool, without the usual accompanying moment of dizziness, and began to search for a mirror. He became so frantic to see what had happened to him that he called out for help.
