Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (81 page)

Corinea smoothed back her long silver hair. ‘I shall attempt another divination,’ she said, as if only she could perform the really useful tasks. ‘I’ll need this cabin, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Ramita yawned wearily. ‘I need fresh air.’

‘There’s plenty of it out here,’ Alaron quipped as they left the sorceress and went out into the biting wind. The deck was exposed to all the elements and any of the Merozain Brothers who weren’t actively working on trimming the sails were cowering in the shade. By now the young men were fed up with the miracle of flight. They’d crossed the great gulf of the Rakasarphal nonstop, then carried on flying through the daylight hours, keeping high up to minimise detection, only landing at dusk to sleep. The lack of success in finding their quarry was getting to them all.

Alaron and Ramita had barely settled into their customary nook on the fore-deck to doze the afternoon away when Gateem shouted excitedly, ‘Look,
look
—
!
’

As everyone stood to see, Alaron exclaimed, ‘Holy Kore! What an incredible place!’

They were flying into a valley that ran from east to west, where giant statues fifty feet tall or more of enthroned animal-headed men facing the dawn had been carved in weathered stone. There was a mass of stone and marble buildings, rows and rows of them, a great city, filled with palaces and monuments, broad streets and narrow alleys. But they were all utterly lifeless: more than five miles of empty stone, filling up with sand.

‘It looks abandoned,’ Ramita said.

‘It’s a city of the dead,’ Gateem called from the rigging above. ‘The Gatti used to build them for their kings. But when Gatioch declined, such places were abandoned. It was long ago, before the Prophet came.’

‘Master Puravai isn’t here to mark your work now,’ Yash called, laughing. ‘We learn the histories in our training,’ he added to Alaron. ‘Gatioch was a great empire, before Kesh conquered all.’

‘Look!’ Gateem shouted, pointing away to their right. ‘There!’

Alaron followed his finger and saw a plaza on the south side of the valley where the tombs were blackened and broken, and in the midst was the blasted carcase of a large creature, slowly being pulled apart by a huge swarm of vultures and carrion crows. There was another one, a little further onwards, already reduced to bones and dried skin, and what looked like armoured human remains.

Holy Hel, what happened here?

After circling cautiously to ensure they were alone, they put down in the next plaza. Only the birds shrieked in fury at their passing. They left half the Brothers with the windships and then together went to investigate the fallen, using Animagery to drive the shrieking mass of birds away. What was revealed was the eerie sight of two dead venators. They spent an hour trying to piece together what had happened, using Clairvoyancy and other gnostic methods, which revealed traces of gnosis-use, powerful blasts of energy that had wrecked the tombs here. They also revealed that many of the bodies had distorted skeletons, warped by the gnosis, but still the details remained sketchy.

‘They were Shapechangers, most of the dead,’ Corinea said after examining them. She was holding one of their skulls, sniffing it occasionally. She pointed to the armoured corpses, and added, ‘These were Inquisitors.’

‘So the Inquisitors were victorious?’ Ramita asked.

‘I doubt it. Inquisitors don’t leave their bodies unburied. It’s part of their oath, to respect their fallen.’

‘The bodies are weeks old, and there are fresher ones in the pits on the south side. Hundreds and hundreds of them,’ Yash commented. He was holding Tegeda’s hand, publically testing the limits. Alaron didn’t care: they’d not put anything about chastity, or even not marrying, into their fledgling order’s vows.

Then Aprek came running from a tomb shouting for Alaron and Ramita: he’d found the body of a small black-haired female, chained in manacles to the wall of a cell. When Ramita saw it she almost fainted.

‘
It’s Huriya!
’ She sank to her knees in a torrent of tears.

*

Ramita let the ashes pour through her hands and merge with the sands. They said in Baranasi that every speck of sand marked a death, one grain for every person deceased since time began.

Goodbye, Huriya. Namaste and farewell. I thought of you as my sister, as my heart’s companion, but you were someone else entirely. I’ll not waste my life trying to understand; I’ve got more pressing things to do. But I’ll never forget you. Perhaps in the end you saw the Light, and that’s why they left you chained in the dark? I will pray that’s the way it was. May all the gods forgive you.

She couldn’t think of anything else to say so she stood up, dusted her hands on her kameez and turned away. The wind whispered wordlessly through the dunes and blew the ash away.

The cell next door to where Huriya had been found had contained a couple of discarded toys, just crude wooden figures, but they had filled her with hope. Huriya was dead, but perhaps Nasatya was still alive.

‘I am ready,’ she said quietly to Alaron. ‘Let us go and find my son.’

They joined Corinea on the south side of the Valley of Tombs. She’d pulled a skull from a fresh grave and given it to Alaron to anchor the scrying-spells he was using to find Malevorn, even though it certainly wasn’t his skull. It wasn’t even human. But it must have had something to do with the Inquisitor, because it was definitely helping. Alaron had been able to penetrate Malevorn’s shields enough to sense direction – somewhere northwest; meaning Malevorn was alive. That thought energised them all.

The old sorceress looked up as they approached. ‘Have you finished your mourning?’ she asked Ramita in a careless voice.

Ramita flinched. ‘Huriya has been cremated and her ashes spread to the winds. She was my blood-sister, and once I loved her. Perhaps you remember such feelings?’

Corinea’s grey eyes flashed. ‘I’ve lost
everyone
,’ she said in a hollow voice. She flung the skull against the wall in a sudden fit of violence – then abruptly she was calmness itself again. ‘I have what we need here. I have powdered the skull of the dead shapechanger found near the cell where your Huriya was found: there is a gnostic trace burned into its very bones that links to the the very taint I’ve been tracing. The next time this Malevorn expends a significant amount of gnosis, I’ll know precisely where he is.’

Zhassi Valley, on the continent of Antiopia

Thani (Aprafor) 930

22
^nd
month (of 24) of the Moontide

Malevorn Andevarion knelt on his right knee, bending over the hilt of his sword. He’d used Earth- and Fire-gnosis to reshape the blade from the heathen curved blade to a good straight Rondian sword. The cross-piece, forming the Sacred Dagger of the Kore, provided him a focus for his worship.

Growing up as a mage was a strangely ironic position in Yuros society. All magi were descendants of the Blessed of Kore, with magical powers and sacred status – and yet the very learning of the gnosis gave insights that the common people never saw. Like stagehands in a theatre, magi saw the ropes and mirrors behind every performance; they more than anyone knew that they and their fellows were far from divine. Malevorn had despised his closest friends at the Arcanum, and had to admit that even he had sinned at times.

But now he’d been chosen by Corineus Himself, and that demanded higher standards:
I will institute a new Inquisition, one that is more deeply rooted upon the ideals of the Kore
, he decided
. I will return us to the fundamentals of Faith.

He’d taken the Ablizians into the desert to refine their powers after destroying the garrison at Sukkhil-wadi. En route, he allowed them to slay an unwary group of Keshi refugees, replenishing their gnosis for the next step in the struggle.

The Struggle
– for it was a struggle, a quest that only one such as he could attempt.

Yield and join me, or perish. Those will be the choices.

He’d been under sustained scrying attacks since the purging of Sukkhil-wadi, of course. But he was unsleeping, unstinting in his vigilance and enduring through the energies of his aetherial links and the blessing of his Saviour.
My faith sustains me.

It was the presence of Corineus, so close to his thoughts that he felt himself a vessel, that gave him the courage for the next step. He grasped the relay-stave and reached out. The response was almost immediate, which pleased him; he imagined the recipient waiting anxiously, perhaps with beads of sweat dotting the upper lip, despite the chill of the Pallas air . . .

a woman’s voice asked quietly.

He sensed apprehension in her. She’d know what she was capable of by now, for he’d bullied General Bergium into arranging this gnostic contact after Sukkhil-wadi.

She didn’t seek a visual contact, another hint that she feared him.

he asked,
not acknowledging her title.

she replied, her voice growing in confidence as she spoke.

Does she guess that I have the Scytale yet? Surely she must suspect . . .

I
succeeded in that mission you ordered.>

She inhaled sharply.

He sent a brief glimpse of it to whet her appetite.

Her voice intensified. <
You must return it to Pallas, Malevorn. It
belongs
here. You will be rewarded beyond your most extravagant desires.>

very
extravagant desires. I have spoken directly with Corineus Himself, and my soul resides in Him. I will not be coming to Pallas seeking reward and favour. I will be coming to institute a new rule of Divine Law, based upon the
Book of Kore
, with the powers of Emperor and the Grand Prelate combined in my hands. I do not come as a supplicant, but to rule.>

He wasn’t sure what response he expected, but laughter wasn’t it. She had the temerity to giggle, a tinkling sound that scratched at his dignity and infuriated him.

she said in a condescending voice,
dozens
, and they have
all
been dealt with by the Keepers! I strongly counsel you to rethink – after all, there is more to power than sheer gnostic strength.>

he
roared.

That gave him pause.
My mother, my little sister . . .

Who was he doing any of this for if not for them?

But who are they really, compared to the infinity that is Corineus?

He opened his mind to his Master and Corineus was with him, aware of all he did.

he suggested. Their reign meant stability for the empire – taking control while leaving them with a role might be an interim step. He would need someone to help him transition into power – why not this woman, who knew the stage and the ropes to pull?

Corineus gave him the words to use, and all but spoke through him:

She was silent a few moments, as if she realised just what power had touched her own in that moment. When she replied, she sounded far more conciliatory.

Naxius.
His Master immediately supplied the man’s history: Ordo Costruo, then treachery. So he served the empire now, did he?

He looked at the map and picked a small town in the Zhassi Valley – if it was still inhabited, all the better; his Ablizians could feed.

he suggested.

He severed the link and sat back, basking in the glow of his God’s presence. Then he felt something, a niggling sensation that had recently started to nibble at him: a scrying that was coming closer than he liked. He was unsettled, but Corineus answered before he had even framed the question.

his Master told him.

Malevorn was incredulous
. —
>