Empire of the Saviours (Chronicles of/Cosmic Warlord 1) (57 page)

The taint sighed.
If the Empire is to fall, then many must die. But do not fear death. Be brave, Jillan, as your parents told you
.

Do not dare to mention them! I will not have you using them for your lies, like you use everyone else. For I know your tricks, who you are and what you want. You are Death! You seek to bring an end to everyone and everything. You want the Empire and pagans alike to fall. Well, I will not allow it, you hear! I want the killing to end! It must end
.

In his mind’s eye he saw his parents again, surrounded on all sides by enemies. For him they had committed terrible crimes and blasphemy. For him they had damned themselves. For him his mother had ended her life and his father had placed his flesh in the path of the Empire’s swords.

Why me? I did not want them to die for me! I did not want the curse of this magic. I will never use it to kill again
, Jillan vowed.

Magic is a matter of will, Jillan. Before they are Drawn to the Saviours, anyone can draw magic from within themselves and from the Geas, if they but have the will to do so. That will must want to change things, and then must be brave enough to take action against the established powers within their community. Very few dare to take action at such a young age, for they have behaviours, thoughts, belief and doctrine instilled in them from the moment they enter the world by others looking to own them. They are reprimanded and punished by supposedly well-meaning parents, who were similarly treated when they were young; they are schooled and castigated by fearful and fearsome Ministers; and then they are drained and kept short of necessities unless they dedicate themselves to the lifetime of labour and self-sacrifice demanded of them by the Saint and the Saviours. Magic is not some curse inflicted on you, Jillan, it is what you want of yourself and the Geas, and what you are prepared to do based on what you believe
.

No! You are the cunning and corrupting Chaos. My magic has brought only death to untold numbers of people. It is as I have always been taught: you simply wish to unmake the Empire so that you may claim the People as your own. You are just as guilty as the Empire in seeking to own the People, yet where the Empire offers food, lives and communities, you bring only death. I will not kill for you any more!

Jillan, the mind is always quicker to remember the bad over the good. Your magic has
not
brought only death. It cured Thomas of the plague, remember. It saved Aspin from the Saint. He would be dead were it not for you. Ash would certainly have died or lived forever alone if it weren’t for you. Just as your magic is a part of you, so am I. We are one, Jillan. I am not some mystical taint; I am not the voice of your insanity; I am simply your more knowing self. You may call me the voice of your magic if you wish, but you and I are one. So of course I have always been here in your mind. Where else could I be?

Intuitively, he knew the taint wasn’t telling him everything; it was leaving out things it didn’t want him to know. It was still seeking to manipulate him, still lying to him. How could it be a part of him when there had been times it had told him things he couldn’t ordinarily have known? Yes, Jillan’s magic had healed Thomas, but that had been an accident more than anything else. And who was to say Ash and Aspin wouldn’t have been better off without Jillan, given that they were still far from free of the Saint and were more than likely going to end up dead anyway? In that respect, they’d be better off not staying with him. He resolved to try and get them to leave Godsend before the Saint arrived. Yet the taint would not leave him be, and was slowly driving him crazy with its perverting words and perceptions. It had got so that he couldn’t trust his own mind, thoughts and instincts any more. He would therefore lie to the taint from hereon in and ask Miserath, when he next saw him, how he could block it out permanently.

‘And who is the oldest among your people, then?’ Ash asked.

‘Oh, that would be our holy man, Torpeth. He’s as old as our people, as old as the mountains, some say, but he’s crazy.’

‘Who isn’t these days?’ Thomas reflected. ‘Don’t need to be old to be crazy, although it seems more forgivable if you’re old. I mean, look at you two youngsters. The millions of people of the Empire would say you had to be crazy to stand against them. Just what made you think it would ever be a good idea, eh?’

‘Well, when you put it like that, perhaps you’re right.’ Ash shrugged cheerily.

‘Matter of perspective, I suppose,’ Aspin conceded guiltily.

‘But if you’re talking about Torpeth the Great,’ Thomas added, ‘then he really is crazy. Worse than crazy, in fact. Dangerous. Pray we never meet him.’

‘Welcome to Godsend,’ Torpeth called down amiably to Aspin, Ash, Thomas and Jillan. ‘What kept you, Aspin Longstep, eh?’

‘Shut up, fool,’ Minister Praxis sneered and tried to cuff his servant round the back of the head. Torpeth ducked into a bow, however, and avoided the blow.

‘Silence, both of you!’ Chief Braggar shouldered them aside so that he could come to the wall and see those below. ‘Ha! Longstep! You join us once all the fighting is done, I see.’

‘Braggar. Where is Chief Blackwing? I bring ill tidings of more fighting to come. The Saint of this region marches towards us with an army of his Heroes.’

There were uneasy murmurs from the warriors lining the wall on either side of the north gates. A few spat contemptuously.

‘You will address him as Chief Braggar, son Aspin,’ snow-haired Slavin said sternly as he somehow contrived to create and step into a gap between the Minister and Braggar.

Braggar puffed up his chest and adjusted the necklace of mountain gems that signified his status. ‘Ha! I say these are
not
ill tidings! The warriors of Wayfar have already defeated the so-called Heroes of the Empire in glorious battle. We rejoice at the prospect of bringing more to their knees in the name of the gods.’

‘Even if these Heroes aren’t a bit sick like the other ones!’ Torpeth shouted as the warriors cheered their chief’s words.

Aspin signalled his companions to dismount. Thomas got down and then helped Jillan. Aspin bowed low and shouted, ‘Hail, Chief Braggar! We beg entry and shelter so that we may share more of our glad tidings with you and raise a toast to your wise leadership of our people and to the glorious victory you have already brought us.’

‘I am minded to let them in, and I am sure I will hear no protest from you,’ Braggar murmured to Slavin. ‘Besides, it would be good sense to learn more of our enemy from them. But what say you, low-lander?’

Minister Praxis made a strangled noise and his eyes bulged as he stared down at Jillan.

‘I think that’s a yes,’ Torpeth offered.

‘Then make it so!’ Braggar commanded, his voice ringing off the gates and the wall.

There was a moment or two of awkward silence. People shuffled their feet.

Slavin sighed and gestured to two of the warriors closest to them. ‘Be so good as to get down there and open the gates. Then we can all get out of the cold.’

Braggar frowned. ‘Where are our other warriors?’

‘Some are out hunting, Chief Braggar, while the rest are at the inn,’ Slavin managed to say without making his opinion on the matter evident.

‘I thought the drink was all gone once we’d poured libations to the gods to celebrate our victory over the weakling lowlanders.’

‘Apparently, they found another cellar.’

‘What! And no one told me?’ Braggar snorted like a bull. ‘That … that is …’

‘Utterly disrespectful?’ Torpeth ventured.

‘Yes, damn it! Disrespectful! Don’t they know who’s the chief round here? I am the favoured of the gods. I’ll see heads broken for this!’

‘Heads broken in the name of the gods,’ Torpeth nodded.

‘Yes!’

‘The gods are sure to be very grateful.’

Braggar’s brows came down and he lowered his head as if he had horns and was about to charge. ‘You’d better not be mocking me, old man. Lowlander, get your servant under control or I’ll have him thrown from the top of the gates.’

The Minister at last dragged his eyes away from the newcomers at the gates and blinked. He’d missed much of what had just happened, but saw enough to know Torpeth had been taunting the young chief again. The Minister’s long arm shot out and he caught the holy man by the ear, giving it a savage twist.

The small man hopped up and down. ‘Hey! That tickles! If you envy my ear and have become so attached to it, then you may have it, for I have another. But do not stand like a wide-eyed child before this spectacle, good chieftain, lest all the ale be gone before you get there. I hear your warriors belching and sniggering that you are not able to drink as much as they.’

Snow-haired Slavin silently rolled his eyes and looked to the sky.

‘Silence, meddlesome slave!’ the Minister screeched and turned Torpeth’s ear ever more cruelly. ‘On your knees!’

‘Gah!’ Braggar waved in disgust and shouldered his way from the wall. ‘Slavin, bring your son and the others to the inn. I will make that building my meeting place from now on.’

Jillan saw Minister Praxis staring down at him with the sort of outrage and disgust that had always been evident when Jillan had failed to answer a question correctly in class or had done something he thought blasphemous. The same outrage and disgust with which the Minister had always warned them about the dark and sneaking thoughts of the Chaos and made Jillan feel so guilty. For the taint suggested dark and sneaking thoughts to him, did it not, and was therefore surely the voice of the Chaos? He felt dirty and sinful. He hung his head in shame. He was so overcome by self-loathing that he trembled wretchedly.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Aspin was asking, but Jillan hardly heard him.

‘Exhaustion and grief. I don’t think he’s slept or eaten since … You know. He needs rest,’ Thomas said.

A willowy white-haired warrior came out from the gates to meet them. His skin was tanned a deep chestnut from a lifetime spent among the high peaks. His face was criss-crossed like old leather, but his blue eyes were young and he moved with the grace of a man half his age. There was a poise about him that said he was either holy or a deadly warrior, perhaps both.

Aspin bowed so deeply that his head almost touched the ground, and Thomas and Ash also felt it wise to incline their heads. Jillan already stood with his chin on his chest.

‘Stand, my son. I am happy to see you here before me.’

Aspin stood proud before the elder. ‘Honoured Father, these are good men, and I ask that you pay them notice. Here is Thomas Ironshoe, whose heart fills his chest and whose strength shakes the mountains. Here is Ash of the woods, who is a kindred spirit of the wolves, yet laughs with the wind. And here is Jillan Hunterson, brother to my heart.’

Slavin’s blue eyes took in Thomas and Ash and gave them a gentle nod of acknowledgement each. Then his eyes passed to Jillan and looked upon him for long moments. ‘Your brother is sorely afflicted. The road must have been hard on him. He can be excused an audience with the young chief for now.’

‘I will take him somewhere he can lie down,’ Ash volunteered.

Slavin inclined his head. ‘Good. Aspin and Thomas need to present themselves at the inn directly.’

‘The inn?’ Ash asked with a raised eyebrow and a strange smack of the lips.

Slavin turned slowly back to him. ‘It seems that the young chief finds himself most comfortable upon a throne of ale barrels.’

Numbly Jillan followed Ash into the wintry streets of Godsend. Water and blood lay frozen in the road’s muddy cart tracks. The gutters to either side of the street were backed up with excrement and garbage. A body lay in one, eyes wide and mouth open, but it looked anything but human. It was so bloated and discoloured that it was more like one of the strange fish found in the deep forest pools. Despite the cold, the reek of the town was foul. Ash kept his nose buried in his sleeve.

They passed the veranda of a long house. An old man sat in a rocking chair at the far end, seeming to watch them. It was Old Samuel. Jillan had clustered with the other children of Godsend every evening to listen to his tales of the wide and wonderful world beyond the community’s walls. The old man would puff on his pipe and tell them that if they were quick enough, and looked hard enough, they would see fighting dragons in the clouds of smoke. He said the dragons drifted up to join the clouds and became bigger there until they were ready to fly east and fight the barbarians, or to fly wherever there were enemies of the Empire. He said that the raindrops that fell were the tears the dragons shed when one of their number died protecting the People. The children had become sad or scared at this, but he’d laughed and reassured them that as long as there were clouds in the sky, there were always dragons watching over them and the Empire would always be safe.

There were no children clustered around Old Samuel now, and he wasn’t smoking his pipe. He had no one to listen to his stories. Jillan had been beyond the community’s walls and seen the wide and wonderful world. He now knew Old Samuel’s stories had just been make-believe to entertain children. There was nothing in the sky crying or watching over them. Children did not always remain safe just because there were clouds in the sky. If anyone said otherwise, then it was a lie of sorts, and a dangerous lie.

For Old Samuel was dead. He sat in his rocking chair, a permanent look of pain on his face. His skin was mottled with purple and there were black trickles of dried blood down his cheeks and chin.

‘There’s no one around,’ Ash whispered, as if he were scared he might disturb the dead. ‘You don’t think Aspin’s lot have killed everyone, do you?’

Jillan shrugged disconsolately and trudged past him.

‘No,’ Ash said with relief. ‘There’s a child over there. See him?’

Jillan caught a glimpse of something a way off, but it was too small and quick to make out.

‘And another one there! And there! They keep disappearing, like they’re watching us but don’t want to be caught at it. Shy, are they, these Godsenders?’

Jillan saw a couple clearly this time. Children quite a bit younger than him. He didn’t recognise them. Where had they come from? It didn’t matter, though. They were probably intent on avoiding the murderous mountain men and anyone who might have the plague, which by now had to be just about everyone in Godsend. It was probably for the best that they did, since that way there was a slim chance that one or two of them might survive long enough to get out of Godsend and find somewhere in the forest where there was enough food and shelter to see them grow into a free adult one day. They were right to avoid people, for too often people brought death. And there were no dragons in the sky watching over them.