by Matt Russell
"If I command it.”
Cassian gazed at some spot on the wall for a long moment, unmoving, and then he turned back and said: "No."
"Gods be damned, you idiot boy!" Tacitus said, his voice rising in anger. The enormity of his power pulsed outward, threatening to kill everyone within the walls of the church with a single unchecked thought. "I am offering you your life!"
"What will the Nemesai inquisitors do when I free them? Will they simply shrug and give up their lives' work?” Cassian chuckled, “No, I think they will immediately begin strangling the people of this empire to rebuild their temples and their grotesque horde of wealth."
"Cromlic will rebuild either way."
"Will he?" the boy said with the hint of a smirk. "The Bishop cannot tattoo his men without dragon's tears, and I have taken all of his away. Who will get him more, your son? Do you think that pathetic little coward will brave the dangers of the Great Dragon's lair? Do you think Promethiock would tolerate his presence?" Cassian shook his head. "No, the Nemesai will not be replenishing their numbers in any meaningful way for many, many years, and in that time an entire generation will come up who will have lived without the oppressive rule of a moral policing force. I doubt they will accept the kidnappings and torture when the order finally attempts to re-establish itself."
"This generation you speak of will still have slavery. No one will enact all your ideas for public education. None of your high-minded plans will be ushered in because you will be a long-rotted corpse in the ground."
"I will not inflict the Nemesai on the people again now that they have been removed," Cassian said. "I would rather die."
Tacitus gritted his teeth, staring at the boy. He took a moment to remember that he was thrice this young man's age and that Cassian had yet to even begin to discover that of which he was truly capable. When the Emperor spoke again, it was in a subdued voice: "I think you and I both require a bit of time to think." He rose from his chair and turned toward the metal door. The nearest craith pulled it open.
"Wait," Cassian said, and his right hand snapped up. To Tacitus's astonishment, a tiny sliver of magic shot toward the door, colliding with it and causing it to shut.
He stared at the boy. With seven leeches on his body! By the Gods Cassian’s mind was strong! Tacitus let out a soft chuckle. "Quite impressive. Can you free yourself?"
"Not yet," the boy said, the veins standing up around his eyes. It had taken him enormous effort to do what he had just done. "The Nemesai think that adding leaches is like laying more and more weight on my back, but it is a bit more like adding another variable to an equation." He glared into Tacitus's eyes and said: "I like puzzles, but there is one that has been grating in my mind for a long time now, and I want an answer for it: Why did you instigate a fight to the death between Dimitris and me?"
Tacitus blinked. Why not tell him the truth?
"I did it for you, Cassian," he said in a soft voice. "You and Dimitris were always going to fight. There was no other possible outcome given who you both were. The Nemesai had plans to manipulate the duel to their candidate's advantage—ways you were not anticipating. I took control and made the match happen on fair terms because I wanted you to have a chance."
Cassian stared at him. For once, the boy had nothing to say.
Tacitus drew in a slow breath and added: "Sometimes an Emperor must do things he finds ugly for the greater good." The boy still said nothing, and Tacitus turned back toward the door and willed his craith to open it once more. He stepped into the hall but then turned back. "You have three days to reconsider my offer, Cassian. If you cannot see reason in that time, I will let the bishop slit your throat." He let the words sink in and then added: "Cromlic used to boast about killing your parents. He described a great satisfaction in particular at watching the life leave your mother's eyes. Will you allow him to feel that joy again with you?"
The muscles in Cassian's face constricted. His mind was a veritable fortress even now, yet Tacitus felt vicious anger seep out from it.
"Think on the matter," the Emperor said, and then he turned and left the room. As he walked back through the hall of suffering, a grin crossed his face. The Nemesai were performing their role even better than he had hoped. More and more, they were twisting the boy into a viper.
.
Chapter 34:
Iona's Power
Arkas dropped from his horse onto dirt and leaves, his heart pounding. He was covered in a slimy sheen of sweat despite the cool night air. The long ride had failed to calm his nerves. There had only been the sickening fear coupled with the throbbing from the right arm he no longer possessed. He had rolled his father's visit over again and again in his mind and reached the conclusion that Cassian would be freed. If that happened, Arkas would never reach the throne. Instead, according to the Norn's prophecy, Cassian would kill him.
"Who's there?" the inhumanly deep voice rumbled from within the shack ahead. Gorlick seemed to notice Arkas at the same instant as his dog, for the hideous black beast came darting out of the house and ran straight at Arkas in a barking frenzy.
"SHUT UP!" Arkas snapped. Gods how he hated dogs! Using his left hand as a focal point, he willed out an invisible hand of magic and caught the stupid beast by its throat in mid-stride. He flung it to the right, sending the whimpering thing fifteen paces into the side of a tree.
"What the HELL you doin'?" Gorlick's voice boomed from within the hovel, and then he stepped out like an angry giant, glaring down at Arkas. "You think you can just—" The half-ogre stopped short and his eyes went wide. "What happened to yer arm?"
"ASANGO!" Arkas screamed, holding up the wrapped stump. "It's time! Where is the slave?"
"She's..." Gorlick grunted, still gaping at Arkas's wound, "she's down by the creek."
"You let her run around unattended?" Arkas snapped.
Gorlick's hideously bulbous face contorted into a glare. "Yeah, I let her go all the time. Where the hell's she gonna run?"
Arkas hesitated. The half-ogre was too valuable an ally to battle over such a matter, and, inwardly, his tremendous friend made him a touch nervous so up close. "You're probably right," he said in a low voice, twitching as he spoke the words.
The heavy muscles in Gorlick's shoulders slumped, and he muttered "Yeah, I know what I’m doin’."
Arkas turned in the direction of the creek and immediately reached out with a psychic tendril. He found Iona’s mind within seconds through the trees—innocent and remarkably free of anger and self-pity for a girl enslaved to a horrible half-ogre. She was focused on a small fish that was swimming up the brook. Arkas saw it through her eyes and felt her simple joy at dipping her feet in the cold water.
"Stupid peasant," he hissed as he made his way over the uneven terrain, weaving through the thick trees. Arkas did not move quietly, and when he stepped out from the foliage, Iona was already looking in his direction. Her gentle blue eyes widened when she saw him, and she took a nervous step backward into the stream.
"Careful!" Arkas snapped.
"Uh!" Iona grunted, and then she glanced down at her foot in the flowing water, staring as if she had forgotten for an instant where she was. Trembling, she stepped forward onto the bank and said in a nervous voice: "S-sorry, sir." Her gaze fixed suddenly upon his arm, and he sensed a feeling of horror come over her that she was afraid to voice.
Arkas glared at her. When he had first acquired this Iona, many months ago now, he had felt his path to the throne was assured, yet after dozens upon dozens of hours of experimentation, he had found no way to harness the elusive power residing within her. Absolutely nothing he had tried had even drawn a reaction from it.
“Let’s have no more lies,” Arkas rasped as he moved toward her. He could feel the little slave’s fear. Did it surpass his own? For a brief moment, his anger melted away, and a sad, desperate hope he had thought long gone bubbled up. "If... if you've been hiding what you are from me, now is the last chance to sp
eak." He was not sure whether he was addressing Iona herself, or the transcendent force within her.
"I..." the girl muttered, staring at him with the same look of confusion this line of inquiry always elicited, "I don't know w-what you're—"
"PLEASE!" Arkas shouted without thinking. He thrust the wrapped stump of his arm in front of her and said: "I know you can heal me!" His words spilled out like those of a lunatic, yet he did not care. "The scholars call Starborn 'living miracles,' but it isn't true! YOU are a miracle! I can feel it every time I'm near you! Please, just—just give me back my arm, and I'll let you free!"
Iona stared at his dismembered limb, her face growing pale. "I... I d-don't know what you want me to do," she whispered.
Arkas could feel every corner of her mind, and he sensed no deceit at all, but how could that be true? How could anyone stand to be so close to such vast power and not understand how to wield it? The Norn had set him on this path with this foolish girl to drive him mad!
"COME OUT!" he screamed, causing Iona to flinch back. What was it that burned so brilliant inside this idiot girl? A celestial entity? A sleeping god? "Am I supposed to kill her to bring you forth?"
Iona shrieked at these ravings and dropped to her knees. She held up her hands in a pathetic defensive gesture and whimpered: "Please! I don't know what you're talking about!"
Arkas trembled in rage. There was no more time for games! "I tried to be patient," he said in a dry whisper. "I tried to be kind." He reached down with his clumsy left hand to the inner pocket of his coat. His fingers closed around the icy hilt of the weapon he had brought, and slowly, nervously, he pulled it out.
'Teskathian,' his father's scholars called the dagger, a name that offered no translation even from the oldest dialects of Dhavic. It had belonged to Daibok, the Demon King himself. Arkas's father had ripped the thing from the monster's hand in their legendary battle. Teskathian had been used for untold centuries in blood sacrifices to the powers of hell. Arkas had only seen the blade drawn free from its black scabbard once and beheld its molten glow. The dagger had felt to his senses like a piece of damnation itself—sickening and terribly potent. It was the perfect weapon with which to threaten, and perhaps even kill a messiah.
"I'll give you one final chance," Arkas hissed, holding up the still sheathed knife.
Iona blinked out tears and squealed: "Oh Gods! What are you going to do?"
"Fine then!" he hissed, and he willed a thread of his magic to wrap around the black, metallic scabbard that held the weapon's power in check and yanked it away. The red-orange glow of the jagged blade burned free, radiating instant heat like a blacksmith's forge. He drew the dagger back, coiling his muscles, and cried: "NOW, YOU'RE GOING TO—"
Iona rose from the ground, and her eyes turned suddenly to orbs of blazing white light. Arkas felt power on a level he had never imagined flowing with her. With a scream, he fell back onto his hands, dropping the demonic weapon. He quickly broke into a desperate scramble away. The energy flowing off the little slave could rip through his magic and eradicate every cell in his body in an instant.
Arkas wailed in fear as Iona's right hand lifted, and a then beam of brilliant white erupted from her palm at the ground between the two them. Her power tore into the earth, throwing up an explosion of dirt and stone that would have killed Arkas had his magic not formed up into a protective cocoon at the speed of thought. He watched bewildered as dozens of rocks shattered against his shield. For a long moment, he cringed with eyes shut at what might come next, but as sweat dripped down his face, he realized that the massive energy had vanished.
The cloud of dirt took a long moment to dissipate. When Arkas could finally peer through it, he saw Iona, still standing in the same position. She was blinking slowly, a dazed look on her now filthy face. Her limbs were slackened, and she was teetering from side to side, looking as though she would drop at any second.
"W-what... w-what happened?" the girl moaned, and then she slumped down to the ground, all the strength seeming to leave her. She panted, barely able to hold her head up off the ground, but then her eyes fell on the destruction in front of her, and she let out a gasp.
Arkas took an uneasy step forward and saw what Iona saw: a charred crater in the ground large enough to bury Gorlick and five or six like him. The little slave had wreaked this destruction in half a second, and, Arkas sensed, it had been done with only the tiniest fraction of the power that resided within her—power that was once more resting quietly, doing nothing.
"What h-happened?" Iona squeaked again in a weak voice, and she stared at Arkas with a look of fear. He could read thoughts in her frightened mind. She believed he had done this...
Arkas stared at her and then gazed once more into the blackened hole between them. If any trace of the hellish weapon he had brought remained, he could neither see nor feel it. His body was still trembling, but his anxiety was subsiding as a revelation dawned very slowly in his mind.
"The hell's going on?" Gorlick's voice boomed from behind, and Arkas heard the crunching sound of his enormous friend bounding over the forest floor. The half-ogre emerged a few seconds later with his ax in hand, huffing through his thick teeth. A surprising impression leaped from his companion's mind: Gorlick cared about Iona... Perhaps it was not a kind or unselfish sort of affection, but he was genuinely frightened—and enraged—at the idea that she might have been hurt. Apparently, the half-ogre liked having a servant to cook and clean for him, and who had grown so used to his grotesque features that she no longer cringed at the sight of him.
Seeing into Gorlick's mind brought Arkas out of his stupor. He swallowed dryly and got to his feet, meeting the brute’s harsh stare. "We've had a breakthrough," he rasped.
"What?" Gorlick snapped.
"I think..." Arkas wheezed, staring at the ground and shaking his head slowly, "I think I finally know what she is." His thoughts were still racing—what he had perceived in that flash of light was virtually undeniable. The idea of playing with such power… Perhaps this was going too far, even for him. What horrible damnation would await Arkas when his heart finally ceased beating, and he faced divine judgment? Still, these fears were not what sickened him most.
All of it was beginning to make sense... Arkas understood what his father had done to him now, and why. The secrets of the empire, the demon war, the deaths of the last generation of Starborn... they fit together perfectly into a stomach-turning mosaic. He did not know Cassian's role in all of it, but he had a guess, and if it proved correct, then the heretic would soon be freed, which meant the Norn's wretched prophecy would come to pass. Cassian would kill him.
"I'm just his stepping stone," Arkas whispered, and he felt tears of bitterness well up in his eyes.
"What h-happened to the ground?" Iona said in a small squeak from the ground.
"Yeah, what the hell happened?" Gorlick snapped.
"I have to think," Arkas said, meeting the half-ogre’s bulbous eyes. "This is... this is bigger than I ever thought."
"What are you babbling about?" Gorlick snorted.
"Heaven," Arkas said, sweat dripping down his face, "and Hell."
"You're startin' to sound like a damn lunatic.”
"Yeah," Arkas whispered, putting his remaining hand on his forehead and running his fingers through his hair. "Gorlick… do you think... do you think there's anything good in me at all?"
There was a brief moment of silence, and then the low answer: "No."
The word seemed to tighten all that was shaking inside Arkas. He drew in a slow breath and said: "Neither do I." His eyes shifted to the trembling slave, but he continued to speak to Gorlick: "I'm going to send Dunlin when the time is right. Make sure Iona is ready to leave at a moment's notice."
"Why? What are you planning?"
"I'm going to kill all the Starborn. Everyone except me." It felt good to say the words. There was clarity in it. If his father really were going to free Asango, then there wou
ld be an inevitable gathering—a feast perhaps to celebrate the terms the Emperor and the heretic had finally reached. Telemachus would be there, and Keska—she had been on her way to her own country but had almost certainly turned back when she learned what had befallen her precious brother, Cassian. With any luck, they would all be in the same place, and then, with some careful planning, Arkas could have Dunlin bring Iona into the room. He would be far away of course.
Arkas stared down at the large crater in the ground. How many hundreds of times greater would the reaction be if he arranged things just right? How many thousands of people would die? He would gladly sacrifice all of them to kill the four people that stood between him and the throne.
"I may need you in the capital when the time comes," Arkas said to his companion. "I don't know what the damned craith will do once my father dies. They may try to kill me. Hell, staying alive now is going to be quite a challenge."
“Yeah,” Gorlick muttered with a nod. For the first time Arkas had ever seen, the monstrous half-breed looked… uneasy. “Iona,” he whispered, gesturing to the still terrified slave girl, “what you got planned… is it gonna hurt her?”
Arkas stared at his friend for a brief moment before the lie came to his lips: “Not at all.” In truth, he did not know, but he doubted her frail body would survive.
“Good,” Gorlick muttered.
Arkas questioned one more time if he were making the correct decision. Once he started down this path, there would be no going back. Even so, he had little choice. The Nemesai order was all but eradicated. He could not look to them for protection—not if Cassian Asango walked free.
"Be ready to come at a moment's notice,” Arkas hissed. “This is going to get ugly."
Chapter 35:
A Secret Mission
"You're telling me that twenty of our men are dead?" Glavius shouted. He glared around at the Onkai soldiers spread all over the forest clearing. There were shamalak as well—dozens of men, women, and children. It was a sight he would have found fascinating at another time, but right now he felt little beyond the anger and fear boiling up in the pit of his stomach. "Did anyone find Kota or Lady Gretis?"
