Farlander hotw-1 Page 7

  'I am growing old,' he ventured, 'as you can see.' A smile, perhaps, in his eyes. 'There was a time when a boy such as yours would have never made it through my window without waking me. I would have cut off his hand even as he reached out for my purse. Now though, I sleep through it all, exhausted by the afternoon heat like the old man that I am.' His gaze dropped to the floor. 'My health… it is not what it once was. I do not know how much longer I can continue in this work. In simple terms, and in the tradition of my order, it is time that I trained an apprentice.'

  'More likely you're lonely,' replied Nico's mother sharply, 'and in the fancy for a pretty boy.'

  He shook his head simply. No.

  'Then what line of work are you in? You dress like a monk, yet I see a sword in your hand.'

  'Mistress Calvone,' he spread his hands wide, as though indicating something obvious, 'I am Rshun.'

  Nico laughed then, despite himself. It came out tinged with hysteria and, when he heard it echo back from the curving roof of the vault, he stopped just as abruptly.

  Both faces had turned towards him.

  'You want me to train as Rshun?' Nico managed. 'Are you mad?'

  'Listen to me,' the farlander said to him. 'If you give your consent, I will speak with the judge today. I will ask for the charges to be dropped, and I will pay him a sum of money for his trouble and that of the gaolers. You will be saved from your ordeal.'

  'But what you ask…' protested his mother. 'I may never see my son again. He would risk his life in such work.'

  'We are in Bar-Khos. If he stays here, sooner or later he may be called upon to risk his life on the walls. Yes, my work is dangerous, but I will prepare him for it well, and when I bring him into the field with me, he will be present only as an observer. Once his apprenticeship is finished, he may choose to commit himself to the profession, or to go anywhere else that he wishes. He will have money by then, and many useful skills. He may even return here to Bar-Khos, if it still stands.'

  He watched as she pondered this, then continued, 'Right now, a skyship is waiting for me at the city skyport. In a few days its repairs will be finished, and we will travel to the home of my order. There he will be introduced into our ways, and I assure you, Mistress Calvone, that at all times I will place your son's life before that of my own. That is my solemn oath to you.'

  'But why? Why my son?'

  The old farlander seemed stopped in his tracks by that question. He ran a palm across the shaven stubble on his head, creating a sound like stone rubbing against the finest of sandpaper.

  'He showed skill, and some courage, in what he did. Such qualities are what I seek.'

  'But surely that is not all?'

  The old man stared at her for what began to seem a long time. 'No,' he conceded, 'that is not all.' And he rocked back on the stool, looking once more to the floor, at the space between himself and Reese. 'I have been having dreams of late, though that will mean nothing to you. Still, they guide me in some way, and I feel they are right.'

  Nico's mother squinted at him, still unconvinced.

  'I'll go,' announced Nico suddenly from across the vault. Both heads swung towards him again and he smiled, feeling foolish. His mother frowned.

  'I'll go,' he repeated, more firmly this time.

  'You will not,' she announced.

  Nico nodded, a little sadly. He knew what the Rshun were, everyone did. They killed people, murdered them in their sleep in exchange for the money they had been paid to carry out a vendetta. He could not see himself doing that, not for anything in all the world, but, still, he could leave as soon as his apprenticeship was finished, armed at least with new skills and experiences. Perhaps in its own way, this was it, his chance to make something of himself. Maybe the Great Fool had been right, and in the worst of days were laid the seeds for better times.

  Then again, perhaps instead of escaping one punishing ordeal, he was trading it for a much worse one.

  He didn't know. He could never know unless he went through with it.

  'Yes, mother,' he said with a tone of finality, 'I will.'

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Flags of Conquest 'I'm hungry,' complained the young priest Kirkus.

  The woman lying on the divan opposite gave a smile that almost split her withered features in two, showing a fine set of teeth that were not her own. 'Good,' purred the ancient priestess, while she spiralled a painted fingernail across her gleaming pot belly, tracing the course of old stretch marks and the gold ring pierced in her navel. 'The flesh is strong, Kirkus. But it may only become truly divine when it acts in accordance with the will. Deny your hunger. When next you eat, do so because your will has decided the issue as much as your stomach. That is how we maximize our appetites so that they demand power. That is how we achieve Mann.'

  Kirkus grunted in irritation. 'You are starting to bore me. You offer nothing but sermons that I have heard a thousand times before.'

  Her chuckle made him think of dry paper being ground purposely underfoot. It only irritated him more. Still chuckling, she shifted her bony frame on the divan, turning over to expose her bare, wrinkled back to the sun. The sound of her laughter spilled over the side of the imperial barge and fell, between the splashing, slow-moving strokes of the oars, into the brown waters of the Toin, before fading, ever so slowly, towards the distant bank of mud – where a crocodile stirred and plunged into the sluggish current in a brief sparkle of sunlight.

  Abruptly, her teeth clacked shut.

  'But I think you forget yourself, my young man, hmm? Not yet fully cocked, and you think yourself the next Holy Patriarch. Very good, but we are on the grand progress meanwhile, and I am to instruct you until you prove yourself worthy of the faith. These things you must know… but more than just know. You need to feel them, too, right down in your guts.'

  'I already feel them right down in my guts,' he snapped. 'That's the problem, you old crone.'

  Her look was one of measured appreciation. Kirkus knew he was her favourite pupil, and sometimes, when she scrutinized him in this way, it made him think of her as some obsessive sculptor, locked in an attic for years, slavering much too lovingly over her latest precious creation. Kirkus looked away from those hungry eyes, partly disgusted. He glared instead at the slave standing behind his divan, cooling him with a fan of ostrich feathers in this private space screened off from the rest of the deck; a thin Nathalese girl, with red hair hanging down around her small firm breasts, her ruined eyes hidden behind a scarf of peach silk, her hands gloved in white in case they accidentally touched the divine skins of Mann. Appetites, Kirkus thought lazily, taking in the slickness of her skin, noting how it stretched to the regular rhythm of her motion. He imagined for a moment what it would be like to take her, right here on the deck – this blind and deaf girl with only the sense of touch – the experience of pain or pleasure – left to her. Suddenly, he was physically responding to the thought of it.

  'Patience,' the old priestess declared with mirth, her attention focused all too plainly on the evidence of his sudden enthusiasm. 'We dock at the next city at noon. You have heard of it, I trust. It is called Skara-Brae.'

  Kirkus nodded. He had read of it in his studies of Valores's recently published Account of Empire, and wished to forestall yet another lecture from her.

  'We can find some more playthings for your initiation. And, after that, we will go pay a visit to the city's high priest, and there drink and dine to our stomachs' content.'

  'If only it was merely food that I craved,' he remarked gloomily, giving the slave another hard stare.

  'You poor, weak child; it will all be worth it in the end. Have faith in an old woman who wishes only the best for you.'

  She looked to the river for a moment, her features relaxing as she reflected on some distant memory, perhaps her own initiation as a priestess. Suddenly an expression of youthfulness passed over her features, as though by some glamour of recall. 'By the night of the Cull,' she said, still gazing at the flow, 'you
will be so full to bursting that, when you unleash those desires, you will at last know what it is to be divine. I quite guarantee it, my fine boy.'

  Another sermon, Kirkus thought to himself. But he swallowed down his annoyance and offered a grunt of acknowledgement, if only to shut her up. Let her savour her vain wisdom, he decided. She had nothing else left to her, certainly not beauty, nor even any real power in his mother's court.

  Kirkus tried to think of other things. He scanned the water and the far bank, looking for something of interest to occupy his roving eyes. But there were only birds and buzzing insects, and the occasional white-and-black striped zel sipping from the water's edge. He was bored of it all already, twelve days now on this stinking, torpid river in the hinterlands of the Empire – ten long months of travel and sightseeing before that – and never once allowed to act freely, on his own desires.

  What else could he do, though? The old bitch was his grandmother, after all.

  *

  The Toin was one of the great rivers of the Miders. It fell from the highlands of the mighty Araders mountains, first as small rushing torrents that rapidly gathered in tributaries before descending into the Lake of Birds, then, continuing as an ever-widening flow that stretched at some points for over a laq across. The river provided the commercial lifeblood of Nathal, and all of the nation's major cities could be found along its natural course.

  As a nation, the Nathalese were a proud people. They had never been conquered by their neighbours – Serat to the west, Tilana and Pathia to the east. For a thousand years their culture had blossomed, uninterrupted, with philosophy, learning, and the arts. Daoism had come to them and they had embraced it also, as they embraced all such new ideas and thinking, adding it to the many other faiths that were practised and nurtured in their lands.

  No longer could they feel so proud, though. Fifteen years ago their cherished independence had fallen beneath the studded boots of the Holy Empire of Mann. For a while they had fought a guerrilla war against the occupiers, but even those small flares of resistance had finally been extinguished. The crucifixion of entire towns in retribution for such rebelliousness had hammered even the proud Nathalese into submission. Nathal was now yet another province of the Holy Empire. It was ruled, as all the other fallen nations were ruled, by a hierarchy of administrating priests of Mann, its traditional beliefs outlawed, all concepts and faiths not in accordance with the divine flesh being vigorously censored and destroyed.

  As the extravagant imperial barge finally pulled into the docks of Skara-Brae, the riverfront looked like that of any other settlement within the Empire. Signs hung overlarge from the fronts of old and new buildings alike, displaying goods and services for those unable to read in Trade, while outside the stockhouses gangs of unemployed men waited in the hopes of finding employment for the day, and fat patricians and their bodyguards oversaw the loading and unloading of their precious cargoes. Prostitutes and beggars waited in the shadowy openings of alleyways, many of them ill from missing their regular fixes of dross. Everywhere, imperial auxiliaries could be seen maintaining the peace, mostly drawn from the local population, wearing suits of white leather armour and the hard, wary expressions of those despised by their own people.

  However loud the Nathalese might cry out for independence, occupation by the Empire had been good for them in one obvious way. Fifteen years ago this riverfront would have been the site of only a sluggish interchange of goods, just like the river it relied upon. Now, business was booming.

  As the barge came to a stop, a hush fell upon the riverfront. Sixty oars rose dripping into the air as one. A detachment of Acolytes marched first from the deck, armed with spears and long-swords – even the occasional rifle. They were armoured with heavy suits of chainmail that hung down to their knees; awful to wear in such heat, though these male and female warrior-priests betrayed no signs of discomfort. Masks covered their faces, white and featureless save for a smattering of holes to breathe and see through, and over the mail they wore the striking white robes of the order, with hoods covering their heads, the material thin, embroidered with patterns of white silk thread that reflected the sunlight in subtle, ever-changing ways. From their ranks, a runner instantly set off into the city at a jog, bearing news for its high priest and governor. Like it or not, tonight he would be receiving visitors for dinner.

  The Acolytes moved into the crowd with the confidence of fanatics born and raised to a purpose, pushing the locals back to form a large open circle. Once that was established, they forced those standing nearest to their knees. The local auxiliaries began to follow their example – pushing children and wealthy merchants alike to the ground, until the only people left standing were the Acolytes themselves.

  That done, two priests emerged, reclining on a heavy palanquin borne by twelve slaves shackled together at the neck by gilded chains. Around them the Acolytes formed up in ranks, while several hundred faces gazed dutifully at the ground, or tried, from the corners of their eyes, to catch a glimpse of these beings who claimed to be divinities. They did not see much: merely two figures reclining on the sedan, their faces masked with gold and their heads shaved bare and gleaming.

  With a shout the procession set off into the quieter streets of the city, breaking the previous stillness with the crash of studded boots against cobbles and the occasional bark of command from the Acolyte captain. At its head walked a single young man bearing the imperial banner, displaying the red hand of Mann. Again the Acolytes broke aside in ones and twos to force onlookers roughly to the ground.

  'Captain,' the grandmother, Kira, said quietly to the commander of the guards, 'let them be for now. We cannot see them if they are all lying on their bellies.'

  The captain nodded and passed on the instruction.

  The two reclining priests were clothed in the same white robes as their Acolytes. They sprawled in comfort and nibbled on the occasional piece of dried fruit through the narrow slits of their masks. It was all that Kirkus was allowed to eat for now. Excitement glinted in their eyes, for it had been two days since their last venture into a Nathalese town, and they both needed the distraction it would offer them.

  It was Kirkus who first spotted something that caught his attention: a young girl with dirty, bare feet selling sticks of keesh from a basket.

  The old priestess eyed her young protege, aware of his interest. She studied him, waiting, until Kirkus cleared his throat.

  'That one,' he instructed, pointing a finger at the girl. The captain gave a command, and a group detached itself from the vanguard to quickly surround her. They threw her basket to the ground and carried her, struggling, back to the rear of the procession. Those townsfolk still on their feet shouted in alarm. A few even made a move to help the girl, though others pulled them back for their own sake, and for everyone's sake.

  All they could do was watch as the Acolytes shackled her in chains and led her away to the rear, the girl crying now, looking about her for support. The silent stares of the street folk grew more openly defiant; it was the only protest left to them. But even that would not last long.

  It was next the turn of the grandmother, Kira. With a snap of her fingers she set the Acolytes on to the hostile populace. Soon, people were scattering in all directions, away from the sudden violence, as the warrior priests began dragging bodies out of the fray.

  'Wonderful,' sneered Kirkus. 'Now you frighten away our sport.'

  'It is a large city. It has many streets.'

  She was right, of course. Other streets, in different quarters, were calmer than those left in the procession's wake. Word must surely have already reached them, though, for the streets were emptier than might have been expected. Still, people went about their daily business, perhaps figuring rumour for exaggeration, or they were simply not in a mind to be chased from their own ground. By now, no one looked directly at the passing procession.

  'Do you see anything else of interest, my child?'

  Kirkus shook his head within his s
harp-contoured mask. But he stared with fascination, appraising everyone that he saw, waiting for something further to grab his attention.

  'I sometimes wonder,' mused Kira, as she studied the young girl captive now walking in chains at the rear, 'if we have not lost something in the gaining of an empire. At least, it seems that way to me sometimes. For every gain there is a loss. And every loss a gain. Once upon a time we had to do this through stealth and deceit: drunks stumbling home from the inns, street children out late, unwary travellers on the road. But that was long ago. In my memory, it seemed somehow better.'

  Kirkus was barely listening, his gaze still intense – waiting, waiting.

  The palanquin finally halted in a noisy market square. This was the city centre, Kirkus knew – for where else would one expect to see a one-hundred-foot rusting spike rising sheer from the stone flagging? He stared at the great pole towering above the marketplace.

  His grandmother noticed his wonder. 'It was Mokabi's idea,' she began. 'After the town fell he-'

  'I know.'

  The locals seemed to pay the monument little heed as they went about their business. He could see wreaths of flowers piled around its mottled base, where soldiers stood guard, eyeing the crowds.

  The city of Skara-Brae had been the final Nathalese stronghold to hold out during the Third Conquest. Hano, the young queen and military genius of Nathal, having been defeated at last in the field, had bolted here to Skara-Brae with the last of her forces. Archgeneral Mokabi, commanding the Fourth Army, had given chase and laid siege to the city, demanding the gates be opened, else all within would be slain. At this, it was said, the young queen had offered to surrender herself, but her soldiers and the city's population refused to let her go. They paid the ultimate price for their defiance.

  When the city finally fell, at great cost to the Fourth Army, Arch-general Mokabi decided to hold a celebration for his conquering troops, one befitting those who had sacrificed so much during the campaign. First, they turned the town into an open brothel, slaying what they finished with or did not want in the first place. Then, in a stroke of inspiration, the archgeneral ordered a great spike to be forged from the melted armour of all those men of his army who had fallen during the siege. Fashioning a spike running a hundred feet in length, they fastened a great plug of concrete to the base of it, then positioned the entire thing, on its side, in the city square for all to see.