by Matt Russell
The Emperor gazed at him for a brief moment, then said: "Finish putting on your uniform, craith. We have much to do."
Chapter 33:
A Visit to the Nemesai
As Tacitus stepped onto the finely carved stone steps to the Nemesai temple, he glanced back at the dragon that stood less than a hundred paces away. Instantly, the thing's yellow eyes turned to him, blazing like twin suns in the night. Titus, as Cassian had named the creature, was quite an imposing figure. No peasants stood near it, though everyone gawked from a distance. By all reports, the beast of legend had not moved for over three days. It seemed to have no need to eat or sleep or even drink water. Instead, it glared at the temple, hour after hour, letting the fearless men of the Nemesai Order know that it could attack anytime it wished. The dragon wanted its master—its father—Cassian, back.
"Hello, your majesty," said an oily skinned-man in his late twenties with a thin, almost rat-like face marked in dark tattoos. The Nemesai’s pale blue eyes nervously flicked over Tacitus's shoulder to the dragon for an instant, then swept the fifteen craith the Emperor had brought to this meeting. He had enough respect at least not to meet his ruler’s eyes but shifted his gaze to the stones below as he whispered: "It is an honor to meet you, your grace."
"Yes," Tacitus muttered, not bothering to ask for the man's name. "I would speak with your bishop. Is he available?"
"He is, sir," the young man answered. He cast the craith another uneasy glance and then whispered: "I'll take you to him immediately."
Tacitus gave an aloof nod but said nothing. He let the fellow lead him in through the doors and up through the narrow hall, quietly sighing to himself. Nemesai temples were such dreary places. Tacitus quickly found himself surrounded by dark stone lit only by a handful of wall candles. They eventually arrived in a large chamber where six men stood together near the flames of a fireplace, whispering. They all turned, and he saw the eyes of his son lock on his and then fidget away, while those of Bishop Cromlic fixed firmly.
"My Emperor," Cromlic said, and he dropped immediately into a bow that was mirrored by every man in the room.
Tacitus stepped forward, and his craith slipped silently in behind him and fanned about the back of the room. Nearest was his favorite and most powerful slave, Kota, who took up a position just to his right.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "I understand you are having some difficulty with your prisoner.
With this invitation to speak granted, the heads rose. Tacitus sensed resentment in several of the holy men, which was an unwise attitude to display toward the Emperor of Denigoth.
"Trouble, yes," Cromlic said, the muscles in his face tensing. He gestured to a large table with chairs set about to the left and said: "Would you honor us by taking a seat, your grace?"
"No," Tacitus answered, and his eyes moved to the face of his son and then the empty sleeve where the boy’s right arm should be. So pathetic... The jokes were already being whispered around the court of Arkas's second crippled limb from Cassian. At least the little weakling had had enough pride not to come pleading to the throne room for help. "My main purpose for being here is to visit Asango, but if you have something you wish to say, good Bishop, then speak.”
Cromlic drew in a nervous breath through his nostrils, then said in a forcibly calm voice: "I must renew my request for your leave to kill the young man."
Tacitus gave the Bishop a level look. "You are not to cause Asango any permanent damage. That is my will."
"Your Grace," an exceptionally tall Nemesai said in a booming voice. The man actually dared to raise his voice to his emperor. "We have received reports that several of our temples have been destroyed! Men of the church—Holy Men—have been dragged away in the night!"
"I am aware," Tacitus said.
The speaker's tattooed face reddened. "And while all this was happening, that little heretic is laughing at us from his cell! Never has this order stood for such insolence!"
"Father," Arkas said, his face pale and sweat-soaked, "Cassian is able to fight the leeches somehow. It shouldn't be possible, but he's managed to hold on to almost all of his telepathy." Arkas swallowed, "He penetrated the minds of the last several inquisitors we sent to his cell. He taunts them, whispers things in their minds, and... makes them feel whatever they're doing to him."
And you are too afraid to go down and face him, even now, Tacitus thought, glaring at his coward of a son.
The tall Nemesai broke in again: "Tomaris, one of the most dedicated veterans of our order ran out Screaming from Asango's cell. It took me hours to calm him down. He was going to hang himself!"
"That heretic is never going to confess," Cromlic said in a grim whisper. "He is far too dangerous to hold in a cell. Execution is the only logical answer, and by theocratic law, we have the right to—"
"No," Tacitus said in a calm, but authoritative voice, "you may not end his life."
The belligerent Nemesai took yet another step toward Tacitus, a look of fury on his face as he shouted: "With all due respect, not even an Emperor may command the church in its holy business! It is time that you—"
Tacitus had but to think it, and six of his craith sprang across the room at the man. He managed the beginning of a terrified scream before the first blade entered his chest cavity. The second sword took his head off in a grotesque spray of blood, and a third sliced the remaining mass of his body in half at the waist. Cromlic and his men jerked away from the violence, gasping and shrieking as they huddled back to a corner of the room as the craith continued to hack away, shattering bones and rending flesh until there was nothing left but a sickening mess.
"You men of the Nemesai seem to lack a fundamental understanding of your place in this world," Tacitus said, his voice remaining calm. He stepped toward them, and his craith darted to his sides, fresh blood and even bits of sinew dripping from their weapons. "I can understand the place from where your difficulty arises." He willed his servants forward, and several of the holy men began to shriek and tremble, including his son. "You see yourselves as the living avatars of a god, and thus your actions are sacrosanct—perhaps even above the authority of your Emperor. The obvious problem with this is that you are only men, and men are sacks of meat that can be slashed and gutted when they anger their ruler." His craith lurched further forward at his silent command and raised the tips of their blades to the throats of Nemesai. Tacitus detected the scent of urine in the air.
He gazed at Cromlic, who was flattened against the wall. To the Bishop's credit, he was the calmest in the group, though his skin was quite pale. Tacitus spoke directly to him: "It is my command that Asango shall not be killed." His gaze shifted to his son as he added: "Anyone who defies me in this will be put to death." He willed his craith to edge their blades a little closer as he added in a soft voice: "If you men hold religious convictions that might drive you to disobey me, you need not speak. Simply think it, and I shall know."
There was a moment of terrified tense silence as Tacitus stared at the Nemesai, scanning their minds. For all their ruthlessness and cruelty, they were cowards all of them, even the bishop. Of course, they were. Ten thousand of them were not worth a single Cassian.
"Good," Tacitus said. "I will go and speak with Asango now." Without another word, he walked to the stone stairway that led down into the dungeons. The Emperor felt just a little on edge as he descended the steps. Killing a man of the church was not a casual matter, and indeed not a step he would take under normal circumstances, but the Nemesai needed to be shown how far he was willing to go. They were only aware of attacks on a few of their temples at the moment. Soon they would learn the true scope of Cassian's 'Plan Elyria.'
A letter written in Cassian's sharp calligraphy had arrived a few days ago, explaining everything in brazen detail. The boy had carefully studied his enemy, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each temple, learning the number of men on hand at any time, analyzing guard movements, proximity to loc
al militia, policies toward intruders, and so on. For a longer time than anyone might have guessed, he had been quietly stationing elite soldiers he had gathered during his military conquests. The Nemesai had had no idea of course. For years they had been chasing the 'Cassianites,' trying to stamp out all the seditious and heretical writings Cassian and his followers had been circulating. The boy had played them perfectly. They were watching his right hand, never suspecting that his left was doing something far, far more dangerous.
"If you are reading this, then every Nemesai temple on the continent lies in ruins save the one in the capital," the letter had begun. Tacitus had not doubted the words, absurd as the claim was. Cassian never lied. The operation had been executed in a single night. The boy had somehow created a spell to allow his sorcerers to communicate telepathically over distances as great as Starborn, and this had let them coordinate attacks upon all fifty-eight Nemesai temples on the continent at once. All of the order’s gold had been seized, all their buildings and fields destroyed, their cattle stolen, their deeds and documents burned. The Nemesai Order was effectively obliterated. It would take a century to recover all they had lost, and then there was the matter of all the holy men. The letter had not revealed what had been done with them…
Tacitus stepped down into the dungeon, and immediately his mind attuned to the swell of fear in the chamber of bars and stone. In the dim light of poorly maintained wall torches, Tacitus passed cells of doomed men and women. These were the ones who had not confessed immediately to whatever sins of which they had been accused. Some of them were supporters of Cassian's views, and some had been fairly rich but poorly connected in political terms, which made them attractive targets for the wealth-seizing inquisitors. Only one person in the entire dungeon was an actual heretic, so far as Tacitus could decipher: Asango.
The boy's cell was in the very back of the dungeon. His room was secluded from all the others by especially thick walls and a solid steel door. Tacitus willed the lock of this barrier to open with a thought. As it swung open, he gazed down the steps to the sunken floor and saw Cassian sitting on a pile of hay, staring up at him.
"Hello, my Emperor," the boy said, squinting. Cassian had no tunic or shirt, and Tacitus immediately noticed that six additional leeches had been placed at various points on his chest and arms. They swelled and contracted with a slow rhythm between large welts and open wounds from whipping. Cassian's handsome face was dirty, but his eyes had lost none of their alertness or confidence.
“Hello, Lord Asango,” Tacitus said.
"Telemachus and I were just in the middle of a game of telepathic cornerstone," the boy said, his voice remarkably calm, "but I should be happy to put that on hiatus for you, your grace."
Tacitus chuckled. Cassian had no self-pity whatsoever. "Poor Telemachus. He wishes desperately to see you freed."
"But of course you commanded him not to come to my aid. Will you sit, great Emperor?" The boy gestured to a wooden chair across from him, the shackles on his wrists clinking as he did. The chains on his arms traveled up to thick pulleys and looped back down to cranks on the wall so that he could be hoisted up off his feet at any time.
Tacitus took a seat upon the chair. "They are feeding you at least?"
"Yes, thanks to your express orders, but then you already knew that." There was hatred just under the surface of Cassian’s pleasant voice. He had cut his mind off from Tacitus's in the first hour of his captivity. There was no longer trust between them and might never be again. “That display above was interesting. Killing a priest. Not even I have ever gone so far."
Tacitus gave a casual shrug, then said: "Let us not speak of that imbecile when there are far more important matters at hand." He leaned forward and said: "I have many questions, as you might imagine. I suppose my first is: why the name Elyria?"
The faintest trace of a grin crossed the boy's bruised face. "I learned the name from a very old document I... acquired from the Nemesai. Elyria was officially the first person they ever executed." Cassian gazed down at a brown leech on his stomach, whose corpulent little body was expanding and contracting at a slow interval. "She was a priestess in a now dead religion known as Parakha. The Nemesai tortured her for over a week to bring her to the light, but she defied them at every step. On the last day of her life, one of her inquisitors leaned into her face to shout some condemnation, but she leaned in herself and bit down on his nose." Cassian chuckled as he added: "The woman actually managed to tear most of it off. They immediately killed her of course, but the wound she delivered to her tormentor became infected. Healing spells were not as developed in those days, and the man ended up dying in a fever-ridden delirium."
"And this woman fascinated you," Tacitus said.
Cassian shrugged, causing his chains to clink. "I have no idea who she was—maybe a horrible woman—but she stood up for herself in the face of death, and I respect that."
"Where are all the Nemesai your men took? Are they dead?"
"Not dead," the boy said, gazing again at the leech.
"Where are they?"
"I shall never tell," Cassian whispered.
Tacitus stared at the boy for a few heartbeats, then said: "I could rip it from your mind."
Cassian looked up directly into his eyes and said: "I doubt it."
Tacitus's mouth shifted into a hard grin at this challenge. "Resigned yourself to die, have you?"
"Resigned myself to live, actually," Cassian said without blinking, "exactly according to my heart, and to hell with the consequences."
Tacitus found himself chuckling. The boy who had survived Promethiock's fire. Cassian's gall was impossible not to like. Was his fear truly burned away? The Emperor decided to let the matter drop for the moment and said: "We have something else to discuss.”
"What might that be?"
"Your intentions."
Cassian smiled, displaying the perfect white teeth that lay under his filthy lips. "My intentions," he said slowly. He blinked at the shackles on his wrists and then locked eyes with Tacitus once more. "Why the hell am I still alive? What are your intentions, my Emperor?" He spoke the words in a tone that would have warranted death for any other man in the world.
"To do what is right for my empire.”
"I find that to be more of a vague justification than an answer. You do not seem to want these men in robes to kill me at the moment, yet you did not come here to free me. There is only a small number of possible outcomes to this situation.”
"Yes-s-s, you have gotten yourself into quite a bit of trouble, Asango, after I took the time to caution you to end the conflict."
"I would have ended it soon enough on my terms if a secret rule to the craith army had not mysteriously appeared after centuries of obscurity. I know Cromlic had no idea he could command your undead killers until recently because years ago I had a look inside his sickening mind." Cassian said nothing further, but his eyes burned with accusation.
"Hmm," Tacitus grunted. "If you have something to say—"
"Did you arrange for all of this to happen?"
The Emperor sighed. "Has it not crossed your mind that the Bishop was desperate for a means to destroy you and was putting every possible resource toward that end, including the scribes in his archives?"
"It has. Did you arrange for all of this to happen?"
"I did not, but when it did happen, I reacted exactly as I warned you I would. Perhaps you might be grateful that I am keeping you from death."
Cassian stared at him for several tense, silent seconds, then said: "What is your aim in all of this?"
"You are my aim, Cassian," Tacitus replied, looking into the boy's fierce eyes. "I do not wish to see you die as a martyr in this cell, which, near as I can tell, is your aim."
Cassian gave a cavalier shrug. "What is the alternative?"
The Emperor held out his hand and gave a psychic command to his favorite new craith. Kota placed a neatly rolled scroll into Tacitus's
palm. As this transpired, Cassian's eyes flicked to the enthralled form of his shamalak companion from years ago, and his brow furrowed. A tingle of nerves rose in The Emperor's stomach. It had been a mistake to bring Kota here. After a few seconds though, Cassian blinked and looked away, evidently not sensing his old friend.
"The alternative is to make you my heir," Tacitus said, "for a price." He held out the scroll, and Cassian's dirty hand reached out and took it.
He opened the scroll and began to read, but after a few seconds he gave a dark chuckle and gazed up at Tacitus. "You actually came here to entice me to confess? To repent of my sins to that man?"
"I did. You have inflicted monumental consequence on the Nemesai for your parents' lives. Now it is time to swallow a bit of pride and move forward."
"And kneel at his feet?" Cassian said. "Tell me, my Emperor, how will you possibly justify freeing me after my soldiers took men of the church prisoner?"
"You said these men of the church are still alive, and I believe you. Set them free."
"And what of the destruction?" the boy asked, raising an eyebrow. "My men burned down temples—holy places!"
"Cromlic exceeded his authority when he took a living miracle prisoner and proceeded to torture him. There were bound to be repercussions for such an action." Tacitus shrugged. "This is a fair compromise. Your confession and repentance will bring peace to the empire. The Nemesai order will still exist, but only as a shadow of what they were."
"And you believe Cromlic would accept this compromise?"
