Born Of Darkness (Book 7) (2 page)

“We did it,” she said. “We brought her in out of the storm.”

She was smiling. The second eyelid had withdrawn leaving her eyes looking almost mortal. The iris was green as jade.

“We did, didn’t we?” Kormak said.

Zamara clapped him on the back. The blow almost overbalanced Kormak. “By the Holy Sun’s Light, I thought we were all dead when that last wave swept the helmsman away. I expected to be eaten by eels in the Sea Queen’s dungeon this night.”

“Well, we’re spared that a fate.”

Zamara bellowed a command. The helmsman moved the ship a couple of points. Their course no longer lay in the direction of the group of massive galleons.

“What are they?” Kormak asked.

“Treasure Fleet,” Zamara said. “Luckier than us. Must have made landfall before the storm could catch them. We daren’t get too close while they are showing those warning lights. They would sink us, on the off-chance of us being pirates.”

“It would not do to be sunk now that we’ve survived the storm.”

“Most assuredly it would not. Now, Sir Kormak. Go below. Take my cabin. Rest. You deserve it.”

Kormak allowed himself to be led down to the cabin.

***

Kormak woke up in a warm bed with a warm body beside him. He turned over and looked down at Rhiana. The sheet did little to hide the smooth curves of her body. He made sure his sword was within easy reach, unhooked the elder sign from its pommel and draped it in place around his neck.

She was looking up at him when he turned back. She gave him a sour smile. “Do I frighten you so much?”

“Hardly at all,” he said. Sunbeams leaked in through the curtains. It seemed like day had broken while he slept. He checked his surroundings. The door was barred. It did not look like anybody could come barging in on them.

“I do not worship your Holy Sun, but I am not your enemy,” she said. She seemed quite serious. He laughed.

“It’s not you. I have worn this amulet so long I feel naked without it.”

She pulled the sheet away. “That would seem to be the point,” she said.

He reached out for her and drew her into his arms.

***

A loud banging on the door woke them.

“I think our captain wants his cabin back,” said Rhiana.

“A pity,” Kormak said.

“Sir Kormak, Lady Rhiana, you must get up now! We have been summoned to the Palace and the King-Emperor of Siderea does not like to be kept waiting.”

“What do you think, Sir Kormak,” Rhiana asked. “Shall we keep the King-Emperor waiting?”

“He’s not my King-Emperor.”

“Nor mine.”

“If you do not open the door, I will have my men break it down,” Zamara said. He sounded desperate enough to carry out the threat. He was a Siderean nobleman and King Aemon was his liege lord.

Kormak sighed. “I suppose we had best get dressed.”

***

Kormak’s muscles ached. He could not remember when he had last felt this weary, but the sight of the harbour cheered him. The daylight was golden.

Steep hills surrounded the bay on three sides. Row upon row of white-painted blue-shuttered houses rose to their crests. Atop a flat mountain in the city centre the Palace Imperial loomed. In the daylight, its walls gleamed white and blue. Thousands of panes of glass caught the Holy Sun’s light and reflected them back like mirrors.

Scores of ocean-going ships lay anchored in the harbour. Hundreds of smaller boats moved between them, shifting crews and goods and officials. In the distance lay the huge galleons of the trans-oceanic treasure fleet. Tribute from Terra Nova, a thousand leagues away across the World Ocean, filled them.

Kormak clambered down the side-netting into the ship’s boat. Rhiana joined did the same and then Frater Jonas, who had finally emerged from his cabin below decks. The small priest showed no signs of being any the worse for last night’s horrors. He looked like he had slept through them. His face had its usual olive colour. His beard and hair were neatly clipped. His yellow robes looked immaculate. His elder sign glittered gold in the sun’s light.

“Sir Kormak, I heard what you and Captain Rhiana did and now I am doubly grateful to you,” he said.

“Think nothing of it,” Kormak said. “We would have gone down with the ship if we hadn’t.”

“Nonetheless, not many men could have done what you did. Not many ladies either.” The words were ambiguous. Jonas had been an inquisitor once and he must have his suspicions about how Rhiana had guided the ship into harbour.

Zamara looked uncomfortable, as if the words had been a direct criticism of him. “Let us be off. We have been summoned to the presence of the King-Emperor,” he said. The words rolled off his tongue as if he relished them.

***

In daylight the Wizard’s Isle looked even more like a castle rising out of the sea. Not a trace of beach or natural rock was visible. There were only walls and windows, doors and a single desolate pier, jutting out into the harbour. The small ships did their best to avoid it.

Ahead of them and to the right, a huge wall ran along a section of the harbour front. Soldiers watched them from towers at either end. Enormous gates led to large slipways that ran right down into the water.

“The Imperial Shipyards,” said Zamara. “Most of our warships are built there. They are the greatest and most advanced in the world. King Aemon’s father ensured that it was so.” He spoke as if he had some stake in the armament works. Perhaps as a distant cousin of the King, he did.

Huge warehouses lined the water’s edge near the piers.

“Impressive town,” said Rhiana.

Frater Jonas gave a small shrug. “All the more so when you consider that less than a hundred years ago this was just a fishing village and a collection of First Empire ruins. Then the King-Emperor’s great grandfather made this place his capital. “

Rhiana said, “Port Blood is a great harbour but this makes it look like a village.”

Frater Jonas nodded and then said, “I would not mention your knowledge of Port Blood too often in this city, milady. There are those here who think the only good citizen of that place is a dead one.”

“Understood,” Rhiana said.

Tenements rose up the hillsides around the warehouses. Those were where the labourers dwelled. Most of the wealthy lived in the palaces and mansions that surrounded the base of the Palace Rock.

A gold-trimmed carriage waited for them at the docks. It showed the star and sea dragon emblem of Siderea on its side. A troop of tall cavalrymen in steel breastplates lined up to the front and rear of it. Their captain saluted Frater Jonas, then threw a less respectful salute at Zamara. He eyed Rhiana with a frank sexual interest and then his eyes widened as they came to rest on Kormak and the blade hanging over his shoulder.

Servants ushered them into the carriage. Once inside Frater Jonas relaxed. “It’s good to be home,” he said.

“You missed your little creature comforts aboard ship, did you?” Zamara asked.

Jonas smiled. “I fear that, proud citizen of Siderea though I am, I am a landlubber at heart.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” said Kormak.

“Spoken like a true son of mountain-girt Aquilea,” said Zamara.

“I like mountains,” said Kormak. “They never try to drown me.”

The carriage splashed through puddles left behind by last night’s storm. It moved past buildings whose plasterwork was dark with rain-damp. Horses’ hooves clopped as their escort moved into position and hustled the crowd out of the way. The people had a nervous starved look. They eyed the carriage with a mixture of envy and resentment that made Kormak think that all might not be well in the city of Trefal.

***

The carriage carried them up the side of Palace Rock. The road ran through street after street of fine houses. The view of the harbour stretched out below them as they gained height.

They swerved around a convoy of wagons under escort by soldiers in the livery of the Imperial House. Huge treasure chests filled the carts. Porters carried smaller containers on their brawny backs. The spoils from the treasure fleet were still making their way up to the palace.

Then the houses were gone, leaving only bare black rock as they performed the last leg of their journey to the Palace gates. These stood tall as the masts of a sailing ship. A carved sea dragon rose on either side. Between them they held a massive five pointed elder sign inlaid with sungold.

With the escort the carriage passed through unchallenged. They emerged into a large courtyard flanked by handsome buildings. The Palace was more like a small city on top of the cliff rather than a single structure. Servants rushed to greet the passengers as they clambered down.

Messengers came and went. Grandees in court costume drifted by in their peacock finery. They wore cloaks of the finest silk, dyed red and purple. Ruffed collars framed their faces and covered their necks. Jewelled codpieces covered their groins. Long swords curved at the tip hung scabbarded on jewelled belts. Most of the men had neatly clipped beards. Most of the ladies wore revealing elaborately patterned gowns.

In separate groups other nobles stood, just as superbly tailored but this time garbed all in black with white ruffs. The women in this group wore black gowns that covered their breasts and wimples that hid their hair. The two groups glared at each other with barely concealed loathing.

Servants and messengers threaded through the nobles. They wore tabards showing the Star and Dragon. Kormak judged that the elaborateness of their garb showed the rank of the servant. Frater Jonas took in the scene at a glance and nodded to members of each of the groups.

“I have not missed the intrigues of our courtly factions,” he murmured so low that Kormak was the only one who heard it.

A servant in a more elaborate uniform than the others came forward. “His Imperial Majesty is at afternoon prayer in the Sanctum of the Angel. You may wait upon him there.”

He did not speak like a servant. He spoke with all the authority of his royal master. Jonas gave him a small bow and said, “Thank you, Hans. I will await His Majesty’s pleasure.”

He gave a small gesture for them to follow and led them across the courtyard. The stares of the nobility followed them.

***

They passed through two open-brass-bound oaken doors that looked thick enough to resist a siege engine. The cool, dark interior of the Cathedral smelled of incense and floor wax rather than storm-cleansed sea air.

The ceiling of the Sanctum arched twenty times the height of a man. Small armies could have fought within the nave. Paintings of scenes from the Testaments covered the walls. Statues of saints filled the alcoves. All of them gestured towards the holy relic that dominated the chamber.

Light falling through the stained glass window illuminated the armour of the Angel Zhamriel. It reached halfway to the ceiling. The proportions were wrong for anything human-shaped, too broad at the shoulder and too short in the leg, as if the Angel had been a monstrous dwarf. Kormak had no problem with that. Why should one of the Holy Sun’s greatest servants wear the form of a man unless it wished to do so?

A massive elder sign covered the breastplate. The faceplate bars of a helmet large enough for a man to stand inside formed another elder sign. Solar runes marked the huge shoulder-guards. Scars marred the metal. The armour looked as if it had been struck by some unimaginable force and survived.

The armour had stood here for thousands of years. Before the First Empire had smashed the falling kingdoms of the Old Ones it had occupied this spot. It was a reminder of the times when the Angels of the Holy Sun had walked with earth-shaking stride across the lands of men. This cathedral had been built around it.

Here was a relic of the time when angels had fought with the demons of Shadow to decide the fate of the world. It was a thought to stagger the mind.

“It looks like a Solari war-golem,” said Rhiana.

“Yes, it does,” Kormak said, impressed that she knew what a war-golem looked like. The armour of the Angel was much larger and the workmanship made even the intricate metal crafting of the First Empire look crude but the resemblance was obvious.

He inclined his head and offered up a prayer. Only after he had done so did he notice the man on his knees on the steps of the plinth upon which the armour stood. He wore plain brown robes. If it had it not been for the small gold circlet round his head Kormak would have taken him for one of the sanctum priests.

The figure brought his head to the floor for the last time and spoke some ritual words. The elder sign on Kormak’s breast warmed as it always did when eddy currents of magic swirled around it. Kormak peered around looking for a threat but nothing was visible. Zamara noticed Kormak’s sudden alertness and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. Rhiana glanced around. Her narrowed eyes had the blind milky look once again.

The slender figure on the steps turned, rose, bowed to the relic and walked slowly and reverently away. As he came closer, Kormak could see he was a tall man with mousy brown hair and a stringy beard. His face was ascetic, his hands fine. The front of his circlet contained an ancient five-pointed star of protection.

He walked straight towards them and opened his hands wide. As he did so, the amulet on Kormak’s breast gave out faint flickers of heat.

“The Angel sometimes talks to me,” the man said in a soft pleasant voice that held not the slightest hint of madness. “It tells me what must be done.”

When he finished speaking Kormak’s amulet had cooled again. The stranger stood there for a moment then tilted his head to one side as he inspected Frater Jonas. “Jonas, my friend, it is good to see you once more.”

He opened his arms and Jonas walked forward to accept his embrace.

“And it is a pleasure to see you again, Your Majesty.”

CHAPTER THREE

THE KING-EMPEROR released Jonas from his embrace and turned his eyes on the rest of them.

“And it is good to see you too, cousin,” he said. Zamara was on one knee, head tilted forward in a respectful bow. As court protocol dictated Kormak had done the same. Rhiana made a curtsey.