And now he sat before the man who had started him on that journey into spiritual turmoil — Querilous Fitch.
“You used me,” Emuel said, looking down at the restraints that cut into his wrists and bound him to the chair.
“The Lord uses us all, Emuel,” Querilous wheezed. “And you shouldn’t believe everything those apostates on Morat told you. After all, look what happened to them; they knew the terrible judgement of our god.”
“They were killed by the Chadassa.”
“I suppose that you could look at it like that.” Querilous chuckled, and the hollow, dry laugh echoed down the tubes that regulated his breathing. Emuel tried not to look at the foul contraption that kept the mind-manipulator alive, but it was hard to draw his eyes away from the pipes extending from the centre of Querilous’s chest, and the juddering apparatus that crowded the back of his wheelchair.
“You’ve changed,” he said.
“The whole peninsula has changed, and some of us have been caught up in events beyond our control. Myself, I met something rather unpleasant in the Sardenne. But, I can assure you that my current situation is temporary. Now, to matters at hand… Yuri!”
A sallow youth shuffled from the shadows and wheeled Querilous’s chair to behind where Emuel sat. Yuri lifted the manipulator’s crippled right hand and placed it on top of the eunuch’s head, where it slipped limply off.
“Damn it, boy!” Querilous snapped. “Do it properly or I’ll have you flogged.”
This time Querilous’s hand was more carefully placed and Emuel shuddered at the cold touch.
And then there was intense pain as Fitch’s fingers sank into his mind.
“Now, Emuel. What happened to the Llothriall? Let’s see what you remember.”
Before, when Emuel had heard rumours of Querilous Fitch’s power, he had dismissed them, sure that the kind man who had brought him to Scholten was incapable of such cruelty. But now he knew better. Everything the Final Faith’s enemies said about them was true; there was no method or sorcery they would not employ in fulfilling the will of the Lord of All, no matter how seemingly heretical.
Querilous’s voice filled Emuel as his last few moments onboard the Llothriall flickered before his eyes.
“Sorcery, certainly,” Querilous said. “But whose magic interfered with ours?”
It felt like the manipulator’s fingers were behind his eyes and, for a terrible moment, Emuel was afraid that they would be pushed from their sockets.
“Come on, Emuel, see for me. Show me who stole away your comrades and left you and Ignacio to face the music.”
Emuel was sure that he could hear the plates of his skull shifting; the pressure was unbearable and there was a warmth on his upper lip, a strong salt taste in his mouth. The angry sea seemed to roll all around him. Looking into the storm, Emuel thought that he caught a glimpse of a desert landscape, a brilliant blue sky.
“That’s it, Emuel. That’s it…”
Emuel pulled against his restraints, the straps biting deeply into his wrists. Even though Querilous held his mind, there was nothing the manipulator could do to lessen the eunuch’s hatred for him. Emuel focused on that anger now, and sawed his wrists back and forth until he heard the light patter of blood hitting the stone floor. With one great tug, he pulled his right hand sharply back, the restraint holding his blood-slicked wrist for only a moment. Querilous brought Emuel to the brink of unconsciousness, but the manipulator had once taught the eunuch how to use pain as a focus, and Emuel pulled himself out of the darkness using the anger and hurt instilled in him.
Emuel screamed as he arched his back, the startling sound echoing through the dank chamber. Reaching out with his right hand, he found the tube that connected to Fitch’s chest and pulled.
“Criminal scum!”
Ignacio’s forehead bounced off the wall, but before he could fall the man grabbed him by the hair and threw his head forward again.
“Vermin!”
Ignacio thought that this time his head made a curiously hollow sound as it cracked against stone. He’d quite like to sleep now; he was awfully tired and someone was calling his Ice cold water splashed across his face and, for a moment, Ignacio thought that he had fallen asleep while on duty on the top deck. But he wasn’t on the Llothriall, he was in a Final Faith prison, and the man who had thrown him repeatedly against the wall was standing over him — a bucket in his left hand, his right held out before him.
“Come on, get up. It doesn’t have to be like this, you know.”
“Really?” Ignacio said. “Because it would be nice if you stopped hurting me now.”
“And the pain will end, Ignacio, when you accept the Lord of All into your heart.”
“Oh, gods! No, no, no, no, no! Please, let this not be happening. I had enough of this shit as a child.”
“He will welcome you in, if you put your trust in Him. The Lord of All has need of people like you.”
“Listen, I have encountered the power of the Lord first hand, and, believe me, He’s not the all-loving god you seem to think He is.”
“Oh, but we know that, Ignacio. However, the fact remains that you are an apostate, and you now have a simple choice before you.” The man turned away and fumbled with something that sounded heavy and metallic. When he turned around, he was holding a pair of iron pincers. “You can repent of your sins, commit yourself to the Lord of All and join the Order of the Swords of Dawn, or I can pull your fingernails out, one by one, very very slowly.”
For a while, Ignacio endured the pain. He had been interrogated and tortured before, and he doubted that the Faith could do anything worse to him than the various port authorities he had run up against in the past.
He was wrong. The man of faith worked him with consummate skill and it wasn’t long until Ignacio was screaming for mercy.
And when he was shown the love and compassion of the Lord of All, when he was offered His forgiveness and sanctuary, Ignacio gladly took it.
For a moment, Yuri merely looked on in horror at the hissing air tube and his suffocating master. Then he quickly wheeled Querilous away from Emuel and fumbled with the pipe, trying to slot it back into the connection. By the time the breathing apparatus was re-attached, Querilous was a pale blue. Yuri looked at his master, horror overwhelming him at the thought he might be dead, until, with a shudder, Fitch came round. His eyes rolled madly for a while until they fixed on the eunuch, who was half out of his chair, his left hand still bound.
“Yuri, wheel me in close.”
“What are you going to do, Querilous?” Emuel laughed. “You’re nothing but a helpless cripple, with an idiot for an assistant.”
The idiot of an assistant was stronger than he looked; the blow that connected with Emuel’s head knocked him out cold.
“I had a feeling this interrogation was going to be pointless,” Querilous said.
The door to the chamber opened and Katherine Makennon swept into the room. She didn’t have any of her usual retinue with her. Querilous was especially pleased to note the absence of Jakub Freel, who had somehow managed to wheedle his way into the inner circles of the Faith.
Querilous’s assistant dropped to his knees and averted his eyes as the Anointed Lord came towards them.
“You are dismissed,” Makennon said.
“Anointed One, without meaning to question your wisdom,” Querilous said, “I am somewhat at a disadvantage without Yuri’s aid.”
“I do apologise. For some reason I keep forgetting about the extent of your… condition.”
“May I ask what brings you this far below Scholten?”
“I think, Querilous, that we need to employ a different tactic in our hunt for the fugitives. Have our two prisoners been adequately broken?”
Querilous looked at the unconscious form of Emuel and smiled. “I believe so. And the radicalisation of Ignacio is proceeding according to plan.”
“Then there is a sorcerer who may be able to help us. Although he is getting o
n in years, he’s one of the most powerful practitioners of magic known to the Faith. What is more, he has offered to give up his life in order to perform one last, overwhelming rite.”
The manipulator said nothing for a moment. The only sound was the hiss and wheeze of his breathing regulator as he stared at the Anointed One.
“What of Brother Sequilious?”
“He is sadly no longer with us. I do somewhat regret my punishment of him. But we all have our off days, do we not?”
Querilous wheezed in agreement.
“You have two days to prepare the prisoners. After that time they will be departing for the Drakengrat mountains with a contingent of the Order of the Swords of Dawn. We will have our fugitives, Querilous, and more importantly we will have Silus Morlader. The Final Faith could certainly use a man of his talents, in these uncertain times.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The inhabitants of the desert settlement surrounded them; reaching for their clothes, stroking their hair, tugging at their hands, all as they chattered in a staccato, high-pitched language. A finger prodded Silus painfully in his side and he slapped the hand away, only for another to tug at his shirt. It wasn’t that these people were being aggressive — that much was obvious from their expressions of happy curiosity — they just hadn’t seen folk quite like the ragged crew of the Llothriall before.
There was a commotion towards the back of the tumult and a metal staff rose above the heads of the crowd, sweeping from side to side as it approached. A path was cleared. The man wielding the staff was a little taller than most, and his white hair was cropped close to his scalp. Like those that surrounded him, his skin was pale and flawless, although there was something about his eyes that was disconcerting, and when he came to the head of the crowd Silus realised what it was: the man’s pupils were silver.
The crowd fell silent as the silver-eyed man looked at the crew, holding the staff out to each in turn. Dunsany looked ready to meet it with his sword, but a glance from Silus told him to be calm.
“We mean no harm,” Silus said, stepping forwards. “We find ourselves somewhat lost and were hoping you could help.”
As Silus spoke the man adjusted the rings running down the middle of the staff, each one inscribed with a symbol.
“What is this place called?” Silus persisted. “Are you” — another ring clicked into place — “native to this-”
The staff began to hum.
“I apologise for the delay,” the man said. “Though your words are not entirely unknown, it took me a time to configure the correct combination. Please, follow.”
The man turned and started to head towards the centre of the settlement. Silus stared after him for a moment before following, the rest of the crew following him hesitantly.
As they made their way through the crowd, Silus noticed the girl who had led them to this place looking at them with a kind of awe. She held up her pet and smiled, and he waved at her. She bashfully ducked back into the crowd and darted away.
Silus was grateful for the respite from the sun when they stepped into the shadows cast by the settlement’s houses. The dwellings that surrounded them seemed to have been sculpted from the sand on which they sat. A few rose a foot or so higher than their neighbours, and a few had domed rather than flat roofs, but otherwise they were very similar. However, rising above them all, Silus could just see the summit of something remarkable.
At first it was just a glimpse of twisted spires, the brilliant white stone reflecting the sunlight like mother-of-pearl, and reminding Silus of the shells he used to find scattered across the beaches of Nurn. As they approached the centre of the settlement, the sand structures began to dwindle in number and soon they could see through to the astonishing heart of this place.
“What is that?” Katya said. “A palace?”
And it was regal and magnificent, but it was like no palace Silus had ever seen, easily rivalling anything even the celebrated architects of Miramas could have dreamed into being. It was impossibly delicate, looking as though a strong wind would shatter the edifice in a moment, but there was an inner strength there; a sense of great power contained. The sun, pouring through the fine webs and arches of the structure, splintered into a thousand rainbows, throwing a beautiful prismatic spray towards them. The sand beneath their feet gave way to glass as they neared the structure, blackened and blistered, as though whatever force had placed this wondrous building here had produced a ferocious heat. Silus thought that he could detect a low rumbling sensation through the soles of his boots, yet the structure before them emitted no sound. Indeed, he considered, for the hub of such a substantial settlement, it was curiously quiet.
There appeared to be no obvious entrance to the structure — no doorway marred the perfection of the stone, no archways led within — yet, as they approached, the silver-eyed man did not falter in his step and passed right through the wall before them.
The crew were brought up short and Silus was just reaching out to touch the stone when the man reappeared.
“My apologies. Please, it is perfectly safe to follow.”
As they passed through the wall, they experienced a curious sensation, as though the grime of the desert had been removed from their bodies and they now wore freshly laundered clothes.
“It is necessary that we keep the environment onboard sterile,” said their guide. “If you will please follow me, I shall introduce you to the head of the council.”
From the outside, the structure had appeared to be the epitome of silent, graceful beauty. By contrast, the interior was a scene of controlled chaos.
The corridor in which they stood was thronged with people, all hurriedly going about their business. Most of them were similar in appearance to those who had crowded around them earlier, but some shared similar features with the man with the silver eyes. No, Silus realised, not just similar; they were identical.
The rumble that Silus had felt outside was here a deep, bass roar. He could barely hear himself think. He lost count of the number of steps they climbed, the number of echoing chasms they crossed by delicate crystalline bridges, before they came at last to what he could safely say was an actual door. The first they seen since entering the strange edifice.
The door was opened by another silver-eyed man, who nodded at his fellow, before receiving the staff from him and ushering the visitors within.
Here, finally, was quiet. Silus’s ears buzzed with the battering they had received on their journey, and it took him a few moments to realise that the silver-eyed man was addressing them.
“-having trouble with our engines, hence the noise. Master Illiun will be with us shortly. Here he is now.”
The man who entered the room was dark-haired and short. Unlike the other members of his tribe, his skin was marred by lines and creases, and there was a look of intense worry in his eyes. He took the staff from the silver-eyed man before dismissing him, and gestured to the chairs that surrounded the table in the centre of the room.
“Please sit,” he said, seating himself. “We had thought this planet uninhabited. I’m only sorry that you have encountered us at such an inopportune time. A few days ago, while preparing the ship for departure, we experienced massive engine failure, hence the chaos you have witnessed.”
“This, this… is a ship?” Dunsany said.
“Of course, I forget, our level of technology may seem to you somewhat confounding. Had we known of your presence we would have revealed ourselves more gradually. I’m only grateful that our translation device” — he gestured to the staff- “enables us to communicate. Clearly your language is not dissimilar to that of other cultures we have encountered.”
“Sorry, but I think that you have misunderstood the situation,” Katya said. “We’re not actually from here, wherever here is. We were brought to this place by sorcery and, in the process, our ship was destroyed.”
“I wonder,” Kelos said, “is it possible that whatever magic powers your ship is responsible for the Llothri
all being brought to this place? After all, the failure of your… engine does seem to somewhat coincide with our arrival.”
“Magic?” Master Illiun said. “I’m sorry, but that word is unfamiliar to me.”
“You know, magic? Sorcery?”
Illiun shook his head.
“Perhaps I can demonstrate?” Kelos held out his hand, gesturing for the translation staff. Illiun handed it over and the mage placed it on the table before him. “Just something simple, to help you understand.”
Kelos held his hands out above the staff and closed his eyes. Soon, a look of pained concentration creased his brow. His hands formed into claws, trembling as he willed the staff into them. Finally, letting out an explosive breath, he opened his eyes.
“I… I don’t understand. It is the most base sorcery, it should be simple. I must be more tired than I realised.”
He handed the staff back to Illiun.
“There’s no need to apologise, I assure you,” he said. “The situation you find yourselves in must be very distressing. Where exactly do you call home?”
“Twilight,” Dunsany said. “And what is this place called?”
“We haven’t yet given the planet a designation,” Illiun said.
“I’m sorry, let’s just slow down for a moment,” Katya said. “I’m finding this hard to grasp. You, Illiun… your people are from another world?”
“Ah, yes, sorry. I sometimes take for granted a certain level of knowledge. At night, when you look up, what do you see?”
Katya couldn’t help but feel that she was being patronised, but she went along with it. “Stars.”
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