Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (66 page)

The effect was devastating, and Elena heard its effect as she ducked to escape the searing heat that backwashed into the room. There was a clamour of agonised shrieking, but the voices stopped almost as quickly as they had begun. She heard body after body clatter to the ground.

Her skin was wet with sweat and the close air heavy with smoke and the taint of burning flesh. She looked up at Kazim and started, ‘Kaz, we’ve got to get out of here. The smoke—’

He wasn’t looking at her; he was leaning over over the armoured man lying at her feet, a middle-aged warrior with a world-weary face. ‘Brother,’ he said softly, ‘I’m sorry.’

The man opened his mouth and blood bubbled up among his words. ‘You chose her. Don’t ever call me brother again.’

Kazim’s face contorted in momentary sadness, then all emotion left his face. As Elena watched, he bent over the fallen man and kissed his bloodied lips as he died. To her horror she realised what she was seeing: a Dokken, drinking souls. Then he straightened, and his eyes were glazed and disoriented. She was almost too frightened to move.

Abruptly he blinked, and was
Kazim
again. He picked her up in his arms and with one swift tug, pulled the last chain out of the headboard. He cradled her against him like a child, and she could feel his own heart was hammering and he too was sodden with sweat. She clung to him, shaking, as he blasted a breathable path through the smoke with Air-gnosis.

They emerged to find the monastery ringing with silence. He put her down gently on a bed – her own bed – and she collapsed there, shaking with relief.

He hadn’t said a word, not since the armoured man he’d killed had withdrawn his brotherhood.

He did that for me.

‘Kaz?’ she asked gently, ‘Are you all right?’

He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time, then his eyes narrowed. He looked dangerous, and she fought not to flinch as he demanded, ‘Did you do things to my mind, to make me love you?’

She stared up at him.
Love?

His voice was trembling with emotion. His hands were trembling with restrained violence.

What lies have they told him?

‘Did they tell you that? Kazim, for four months we’ve fought like cat and dog! We’ve spent half the time screaming at each other and the other half trying to beat each other to a pulp – does that sound like
love
to you?’

He stared at her, and his eyes suddenly welled up. ‘No,’ he choked out, ‘no, it doesn’t.’

Unbelievably, she felt a bubble of laughter escape her throat. ‘Of course, maybe I’m just rukking useless at charming people.’

‘You are,’ he told her. He scrubbed furiously at his face. ‘So why is it that I just killed my friends for you?’

She gulped for breath and her heart stuttered, then it pounded on again, painfully hard. She had an overwhelming urge to wash all the blood and smoke and death away, to make
him
clean again – but all she could do was cling to him in her bloodied nightshift and try not to collapse.

Eventually, some kind of control, even decorum, reasserted itself between them. He looked around for her cloak, plucked it from the hook and wrapped it around her. Once she was decently covered, he looked at her again, this time with a bleak sadness in his eyes.

‘I was a fool,’ he said simply. ‘I thought they would welcome you, for your aid against Gyle. But they’ve reached an
accommodation
with him.’

Have they? Gurvon, you devious prick!

‘Did Gatoz—?’

She shook her head. ‘You were on time. Like an answer to a prayer.’

He flinched at that, as if the thought of her prayers was unwelcome. ‘Have they done anything else to you?’ he demanded.

‘They placed a Chain-rune on me,’ she told him. ‘It won’t fade just because the caster is dead.’ She reached out and took his hand and pressed it to the middle of her chest. ‘You need to reach inside me and disrupt it – as if it’s a locking ward you’re opening. It’ll hurt me, but only a little, and I’ll soon recover.’

He closed his eyes and laid both hands on her chest, and then she felt a sharp popping sensation, like a small explosion. She gasped, but the pain quickly faded and she immediately felt her gnosis begin to flow again, replenishing her like water reviving a withered plant.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. She straightened her nose, rejoicing as her healing-gnosis flowed unimpeded. ‘Thank you so much.’

He squeezed her hand, then stood. ‘I need to find the rest of them.’

‘Wait,’ she told him, ‘let’s heal you first. It’ll be quicker in the long run.’ She quickly stopped his bleeding and loosely sealed the wound in his side, then she filled the water bowl from the ewer on the nightstand and charged the fluid with clairvoyance-gnosis. She scanned quickly, going room to room, from the top of the monastery to the bottom, seeking signs of movement or energy.

‘I’m not getting anything,’ she muttered, ‘but they could be using runes of hiding.’

‘We’ll check every room,’ he replied. His eyes still looked bleak.

She admired his determination as much as she pitied his loss. She seized his hands and looked up into his eyes. ‘Kazim, I don’t know what to say – you came for me.’ Her voice was filled with wonder. ‘I don’t even know why—’

She saw him swallow.

He did it because he loves you, you idiot.

He composed his face and met her eyes. ‘What Gatoz was going to do to you – it was wrong – and the others just stood aside, even Jamil. So I had to stop them.’ He looked away. ‘How can they claim to oppose evil when they do these things? You can’t clean floors with a bucket of blood.’

It sounded like something from the Kalistham. She couldn’t have put it better if she’d tried.

‘I hate what the Crusade is doing to my land,’ he went on, ‘but the way the Hadishah tries to resist – that is
wrong
. Our own people live in fear of us. There has to be another way. I thought the shihad would be pure, but it’s been corrupted. It’s not holy any more – maybe it never was. How can you find paradise by killing innocent people?’

She squeezed his hands and said quietly, ‘If you wish it, we can end our pact, Kazim. No debts. You could go home—’

‘I have no home any more,’ he told her. ‘I have no home left but you.’

No home left but you.
She stepped into his arms and hugged him tightly, struggling to control her own tears, while he stroked her hair and promised naïvely stupid things about keeping her safe.

Morphic Gnosis

There is much that is laudable about morphic-gnosis, including the ability to improve oneself physically to improve longevity, strength, speed, and appearance. Within this Craft lie the seeds of a better human being. But why do we continue to teach our young magi how to take another’s form, when to do so offers such obvious criminal purpose?

S
ENATOR
R
ANN
D
EVEREU
, P
ALLAS
L
EGISLATURE
776

Brochena, Javon, Antiopia
Zulhijja (Decore) 928
6
^th
month of the Moontide

Cera was marched from the dungeons and up into the palace, flanked by two soldiers whose gauntleted hands were clamped upon her upper arms. Armed men were everywhere, and the occasional Dorobon courtier – Octa’s people, not Francis’. She’d been in her cell for hours with neither food nor water, and she felt dizzy and ill. She dimly recognised where she was: a small parlour on the ground floor. The Lantric woman was waiting for her again. The soldier let her go and her limbs failed her, leaving her grovelling helpless on the floor.

‘Leave us,’ the Lantric mage snapped, and the soldiers immediately did as they were ordered.

‘You did this,’ Cera snarled.

The woman smirked. ‘I did. I, Hesta Mafagliou of Lantris. You’re only human, girl;
I
am a mage. I can do whatever I want with cattle like you.’

Cera buried her face in her hands. ‘I’ll tell them. I’ll—’

‘Tell who?’ Hesta said scornfully. She bent over and wrenched Cera’s hands away from her face, then slapped her. The blow made her head ring. ‘Shut up, girl. You will say exactly what I wish you to say.’ She pulled Cera’s face to hers. ‘Or I will also betray your little finger-and-tongue sessions with Portia Tolidi to Octa Dorobon and your precious safian lover will die alongside you.’

Cera’s words of defiance turned to dirt in her throat. ‘No,’ she choked.

Hesta pursed her lips, and for a moment at least she looked faintly sympathetic. There was pity in her voice as she said, ‘Believe me girl, I know what you’re going through. I too had my world pulled down around me for a love others see as unnatural. It’s not fair, but what is? In the end, life is a struggle, and the winner takes all. I would make a corpse of all the world to have back what I lost.’

Cera tried to look away, but the woman’s eyes and mind latched onto her like the tentacles of a river-squid. ‘This, little queen, is what you will tell the tribunal …’

Some time later the soldiers came again and half-carried, half-dragged Cera into the midst of many seated men: Amteh Godspeakers and Sollan priests; the Kore bishop, Eternalus Crozier, and more. Some were familiar – she saw Acmed al’Istan, who had sat at her council table, and Drui Ivan Prato, her childhood confessor – but they all looked at her as if she had sprouted demon horns.

Eternalus Crozier rose to his feet, as the doors slammed shut. ‘Cera Nesti, you are accused of adultery with Gurvon Gyle, murderer of your father. How do you plead?’

I’m innocent
, she tried to scream, but instead, she said, ‘Guilty,’ the word coming out with the exact intonation Hesta had implanted when she had spoken it into her skull. More words followed, and she let them spill out, not even bothering to listen to herself: made-up stories of lurid couplings, straight from Hesta’s imaginings. Her eyes bled tears.

‘You are also accused of plotting with Gurvon Gyle to usurp the realm and overthrow the king. How do you plead?’

‘Guilty.’

Why not? If I have to die, let that prick join me
.

Eternalus Crozier’s voice was dispassionate; Acmed’s eyes condemning; even gentle Ivan Prato’s face was filled with disgust.

There was little else to be said. Under Amteh law she could be stoned, but the Crozier showed her mercy, of a sort, by condemning her instead to a Yuros-style beheading.

No one pleaded for her or on her behalf.

First, though, came the paperwork. All afternoon they put before her scrolls filled with the details of the lies Octa Dorobon had contrived to implicate her enemies: secret meetings, names she barely knew, people she’d never met – magi of Gyle’s contingent; Francis’ friends, even a mercenary captain called Endus Rykjard.

That gave her a momentary spark of hope, that soon Dorobon and mercenary would be at each other’s throats, but that died as the litany of made-up accusations went on and on. They even named officials based in Pallas, but she no longer cared. She confessed to everything they wanted.

The documentation finally completed, she was led back to her narrow cell.

Eternalus Crozier accompanied her to the door of her cell without uttering a word. Only as he opened the door did he finally break the silence. ‘Do you wish to confess your sins before you die?’

‘I am Sollan,’ she replied, as defiantly as she could. ‘Your God is nothing to me.’

His face twisted nastily. ‘Then you will suffer for eternity in Hel regardless,’ he told her. ‘The headsman will be here in ten minutes.’

She blinked. ‘What? But the law—’ The law demanded three months between sentence and execution of the condemned, in case grounds for appeal were found.

‘You are beneath the law. Prepare yourself for death.’

*

They entered together, the two Dorobon women: Octa waddling triumphantly, Olivia a lesser shadow in her wake. Gurvon was chained to a wall of the cell, battered and bleeding. Three ribs had
been broken, and his face had been pummelled to rawness. Every breath was agony. His ears still rang, and blood and snot encrusted his face.

‘Well,’ boomed Octa jovially. ‘What a sad come-down, Magister Gyle! Look at you: all broken, and about to lose your head. We’ve decided not to wait until morning. Every second that you are alive makes me nervous. Tradition can go fuck itself: I want you dead now.’

She snapped her fingers, and a hooded executioner marched in, axe in hand.

‘Mummy, do I have to watch?’ Olivia said, wrinkling up her nose.

‘Yes, dear, you must,’ Octa said nastily. ‘You were prepared to bed him, so you can jolly well watch him die.’

Olivia pouted. ‘It was just
rukking
, Mother. I didn’t have anything to do with his plots and plans – he never even
mentioned
them.’

He could hear the undercurrent of fear in her voice.

‘Of course not. Gurvon Gyle was hardly going to confide in a silly chit like you, my dumpling. No one would ever think that.’

‘Thank you, Mother,’ Olivia gushed. She looked on the verge of tears, but he didn’t for a moment think they were for him.

‘There, there. He was never really interested in you, darling child.’ Octa patted her daughter’s cheeks. ‘He was just using you to try and win poor Francis’ trust, all the while conniving with that evil Nesti minx behind our backs. If he had other lovers we’ll find them and we’ll chop off their heads too.’

The headsman unlocked his manacles. A Chain-rune shackled Gyle’s gnosis, and his body was a throbbing mess. Escape was not a possibility. The moment his wrists were released from manacles he collapsed to his knees, jarring them painfully.

‘Just because someone slept with Gurvon doesn’t make her a traitor,’ Olivia said worriedly.

‘It does if it suits me, darling,’ Octa purred.

She knew about everything Olivia had done; he could hear it in her voice. But family was different. Excuses could always be found for family.

Octa clicked her fingers and another guard came in, carrying a
heavy canvas bag. When Octa gestured, he opened the bag and tipped it over, so that the contents were able to fall to the floor. The two heads that rolled from it thudded wetly against the stone. Mathieu Fillon, and the mage Sordell had inhabited. He wondered if Sordell’s scarab was just a smear on the floor somewhere, but he didn’t have long to brood on the question, for there was a noise in the corridor outside, then another gaoler came in, rolling a big block of wood into the centre of the room. It had a notch in it, and it was encrusted in blood both old and fresh.

An executioner’s block.

Gyle stared at it, the unreality of this moment creeping over him.

Is this
really
it? After all these years, and all I’ve done? It can’t be—

‘Get it over with, man,’ Octa growled, and at her command the executioner hefted his great axe. She groped for a leather bag of coin dangling at her waist and jingled it enticingly. ‘Take his head off in one blow and you get the lot.’

The guard shoved Gyle into place, then retreated to a spot behind Olivia. The headsman bowed to Octa, positioned himself between her and his subject and kissed the blade against the back of Gyle’s neck, measuring the blow.

No, there must be some angle
, he thought desperately, seeking something, anything … But his pain-numbed brain was churning too slowly, nothing was connecting.

‘Mater-Imperia wants me alive,’ he pleaded.

‘Of course she doesn’t,’ Octa tinkled merrily. ‘She gave me permission herself, minutes ago. She respects you too much to delay your death.’

She looked at the headsman. ‘Do it now.’

The axe swung.

*

Francis Dorobon sat alone on his balcony, wondering what the future held for him.
I’m King, I’m still King
. He clung to that thought.
But Mother is going to rein me in again
. He cringed inwardly. For just a few weeks, he’d truly felt that life would be as he wanted it –
finally
. He’d been hunting and drinking and dancing with his friends, living like
carefree rulers of the world. He had Portia, the most beautiful woman in existence. What did he care what that Nesti bint and Gurvon got up to? As long as she didn’t end up with Gurvon’s child in her belly, he didn’t give a shit.

But Mother didn’t see it like that, oh no! This was her excuse to reclaim all the ground he’d fought so hard to win. That waddling tyrant who dominated every waking moment of his life would shunt him aside yet again and do whatever she damned well liked.

It’s all Gyle’s fault – he’s a fucking spy! How could he be so rukking stupid as to get caught like this?

The central truth of his life was reasserting itself:
no one took on Mother and survived
. The mere thought was foolishness, suicidal idiocy, and Gurvon Gyle deserved to die for not realising it. He’d miss the man’s wit and understanding – but he wouldn’t miss Cera Nesti at all, though who knew what her execution would trigger amongst her people. The Nesti would need to be crushed now, and he was by no means sure he had enough men to do it.

At least I still have Portia.
Though he was cross that she’d tried to plead for Cera’s life.

He tried to put aside his fears for the future and to think about the things that gave him pleasure, but the same reality kept on intruding: he was losing control again, and Mother was going to rule his life forever.

‘Lord King?’ A woman’s voice, a heavy southern Yuros accent, intruded on his unhappy thoughts.

He flinched; he hadn’t realised anyone was so close. ‘Who are you?’ The woman was a big-nosed, sad-eyed Lantrian clad in a shapeless black robe. She had a nose-ring, and her iron-grey hair had been tied back in a severe bun.

‘My name is Hesta Mafagliou,’ the woman said. ‘I work for your mother.’

‘What do you want?’ he asked timidly.

‘I have been sent to tell you that the queen and Magister Gyle are about to be executed. Cera Nesti’s family will be told that she was
struck down by fever. A period of mourning will be declared. No one will know of your shame.’

‘Shame?’ he echoed hollowly, then re-found his temper. ‘There is no shame on me. I am the King. A king cannot be shamed.’

Hesta Mafagliou regarded him steadily. ‘Yes, my King.’

Her eyes judged him – all of their eyes would judge him: the soft-cocked King of Javon, cuckolded by his chief advisor. His mother had warned him –
because Mother always knows best, damn her
.

He gripped his periapt, longing for someone – anyone – to lash out at. ‘You’re the one who found them together, aren’t you?’

The hooded eyes twitched. ‘I did, my King.’

‘You should have come to me!’ he shouted at her, ‘not gone running to my mother!’

‘Your mother already knew—’ the woman began, then stopped. She’d miscalculated, and she knew it. She backed towards the door.

Mother knew – it’s a set-up. We’ve all been had, by my bloody mother!

‘Get out!’ he shouted. ‘Get out of my sight!’

The Lantric witch backed away. ‘My lord King, I’m sorry—’

A bulky shape filled the space behind her. ‘Mother?’ Francis began.

‘Hesta,’ the newcomer rumbled. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

*

The axe blade arched through the air. It crunched through flesh and bone, and the head thudded wetly to the floor.

Gurvon Gyle stared at the goggle-eyed shock only just registering on Octa Dorobon’s face, as her head bounced in the straw like a dropped pumpkin and rolled to a standstill beside the execution block. Her body remained upright a second longer, then crashed sideways.

Behind her, Olivia opened her mouth to scream, but the sound became a gurgle as the guard behind her punched a taloned hand through her back, gripped her heart and squeezed it. She shuddered, helpless agony on her face, then she too fell face-down to the ground, landing on her mother’s carcase.

Her killer’s face altered, various faces forming then faltering and giving way to the next, until she settled on her own: the androgynous
face of Coin – or Yvette, if there was a difference – a skinny white youth of indeterminate gender.

Yvette wiped her hand clean on Olivia’s skirts and grinned at him.

‘Gurvon, are you all right?’ Rutt Sordell asked from within the body of the executioner. ‘Can you stand?’

He tried, though he couldn’t take his eyes from Octa Dorobon’s severed head, still trying to speak, even as the features were going slack. He gripped the block and gingerly pulled himself upright. The walls were swaying and pulsating around him. ‘Get this rukking Chain-rune off me,’ he croaked, his throat dry and gritty as he started fighting to clear his head.