The Trials of Empire, page 15
“What do you mean?” Danai translated.
“The fates of our nations are entwined. They have been for centuries. Ever since Valent Saxan requested Salisun act as the Imperial Warden, ever since the Autun has been the official device of the Haugenates, ever since we both became practitioners in the rare magicks this world has to offer, our human nation and your wolf nation have shared in the vicissitudes of Fate. When we prosper, you prosper. When our star falls, so does that of the Kyarai.”
He paused to let Danai turn these impressive words into a stream of very unimpressive-sounding Kasarsprek.
“You know of the Savaran Templars. They have made it their business to expand the southern frontier of the Empire. Whilst their preoccupation has, for the longest time, been the native Saeka people, I know that they have turned their attention to the northernmost settlements of the Kasar. That these actions were not condoned by my Emperor is likely to be of little comfort to you, but there you have it.
“In recent months the Templars have been taken over by a man called Bartholomew Claver. Claver is an evil man and a menace to the natural order of the world. He has two objectives: the first is to install himself upon the Imperial throne, and he has gone to – and will go to – great and bloody lengths to achieve this goal. The second is to become the sole custodian and practitioner of the arcana.
“Members of the Kasaraad, Claver is coming close to achieving the first of these objectives. If he has not already done so, we believe that he will take a large Templar force north and begin to cut through the armies which stand in his way between the Frontier and the Hall of Solitude in Sova. These armies are few in number and ill prepared for the magickal onslaught which will greet them. This is by design; Claver has spent many months ensuring that the élite forces of the Empire remain bogged down along the River Kova.
“It has fallen to me to rally what forces I can to oppose him. I have had some success in the north of the Empire. But I do not have nearly as many soldiers as I need.”
He paused to let Danai catch up. But, judging by the stillness in the chamber, it did not seem that any member of the Kasaraad, even the more obviously obstreperous ones, was about to interrupt.
“Esteemed members, I owe you an apology, and I give such freely and very sincerely. I came to your great city seeking assistance, but I have brought death and horror with me. Respected and wise members of the Spiritsraad are dead, and though they were killed by Claver, it was I who created the circumstances in which they came to be at risk. But at least it has demonstrated, in a stroke, just how very dangerous Bartholomew Claver is, and just how much of a threat he poses to your nation.”
This was the first time in Vonvalt’s speech I baulked slightly; he was often overconfident in people’s ability to accept what he considered to be objective and inescapable logic.
“You have heard from your Hyernakryger, of the vile acts of Claver in the Spiritsraad. I and my companions owe them our lives. It is a debt I hope to repay with this early warning: you must strike north. Sova is in disarray. The forces of disorder are prevailing. My whole reason for seeking the assistance of your Spiritsraad was to get a warning to the Imperial Warden, and to bring his counsel – for I understand he is wise and respected – to you, here. With decisive intervention from the south, combined with an attack from the north, we might yet preserve the lives of many thousands of humans and Kasar.
“Members, I humbly beseech you for your assistance, and I should be pleased to answer all the questions you may have on the matter.”
Danai finished translating. The Questioner remained silent. The chamber remained silent.
Clearly, nobody had been expecting that.
Eventually, the Questioner said something to Danai, and the ambassador turned to us.
“There are no questions. They wish for you to leave. Come.”
We waited in an antechamber for several hours whilst the Kasar discussed matters. Sometimes the debate rose in pitch and intensity where I imagined some thorny issue was being raked over. Other times the chamber was eerily quiet. Eventually, Danai came out, and informed us that we could go.
“What does that mean? Is that a good sign?” Vonvalt asked her, uncharacteristically anxious.
Danai shrugged. “Honestly, I do not know. But I expect they would have arrested you here and now if you were ultimately to be executed.”
We were led back out of the Kasaraad and on to the steps of the red pyramid which sat beneath it. “I have done what I can on your behalf. The session will take a long time. They will want to hear from others, and debate matters exhaustively. It is rare that a dynasty will not want to have its say, even if it adds nothing to the overall conversation.” She nodded down the vertiginous steps to the city below. “We might as well wait in comfort.”
We walked back through the streets until we reached the ambassador’s residence. Here we were offered more fruit, as well as a little meat and bowls of cold herbal tea, though none of us were in the mood for eating. Still, I felt more optimistic that we would leave the Kyarai alive. It was an outcome I would have been happy with, even if we achieved nothing else.
Danai was right in that no news came for the rest of the day. Servants had visited Sir Anzo’s house and had recovered our belongings, and we packed them up. Danai secured horses for us, too, and made general arrangements for our passage out of the city.
It was a long, hot, sultry afternoon. In other circumstances we would have explored the city and taken in its delights, but for all of Danai’s diplomatic circumspection, there was no doubt that we were under house arrest.
I had wanted to speak to Vonvalt, to return to our conversation from earlier that morning; but Vonvalt hated to be ill informed, and pressed Danai to teach him the rudiments of Kasarsprek. She herself did not have the time, but ordered a servant fluent in both to take up the task. I felt sorry for the man as I watched him carry several books into Vonvalt’s chamber.
So it was that von Osterlen and I ended up spending the remains of the day together. We arranged ourselves as Vonvalt and I had that morning, and in spite of my earlier dislike of it, had a little more kafé. I was beginning to see its appeal as a drink to be sipped over the course of an hour.
“What do you think?” I asked von Osterlen. She looked rather striking in her silk kirtle, which caught the sun and contrasted pleasantly against her olive skin and black hair. Mine made me look wax-pale – or it would have done had the sun not burnt it red.
Von Osterlen did not look at me. She surveyed the city through squinted eyes like an engineer might view an enemy fortification. Even in this relaxed setting she intimidated me. She had a hard character, all of her mirth and good humour beaten out of her on the Frontier like a hammer against a red-hot sword.
“I do not think they will kill us, but nor do I think they will give us this ‘Grasvlaktekraag’, or whatever it is called.”
“No, I think that is the right way to say it.”
“Hm. I shall leave the language to Sir Konrad.”
“He has an ear for it. He will pick it up quickly.”
Now von Osterlen did look at me. She looked faintly amused. “You think so highly of him, don’t you?”
“Who could not? However I feel about him, and I feel a great many things – often contradictory things – nobody could argue he is not a remarkable man.”
Von Osterlen turned back to the view. “I think Sir Konrad is a fundamentally good man. But he is allowing what makes him fundamentally good to be squeezed out of him. Like meat from a sausage skin.” She looked unhappy as she spoke. “But I shall not pretend that there is some other option which allows us all to keep our virtue intact.”
“No,” I said. I regretted agreeing with her, though I did. Saying it out loud felt like an admission of defeat.
“It is better to stop Claver with polluted souls. I do not like it, but the outcome is what is important. But that business with the runts sickens me to my back teeth. Sir Anzo…” She shook her head. “Men like that, they make the world a worse place.”
“Aye, well.” I took a sip of the kafé. “He is dead now.”
Now von Osterlen fixed me in the eye. She looked angry, and I felt as though we were getting to the crux of what had been truly bothering her. “Is he, though?”
“What do you mean?” I asked disingenuously.
“You know exactly what I mean. Is he dead? Does anybody truly die? Or are we all destined to while away eternity in some confounding hellscape at the mercy of unknowable creatures? Is that what our lives will be reduced to? All this—” She gestured to the city around us. “Meaningless.”
I sighed, long and loud. “I don’t know—”
“Don’t tell me that you don’t know,” von Osterlen snapped in a flash of anger. “Prince of Hell, Helena! ’Tis as though you are the earthly reincarnation of Saint Creus. Visitations, communing with devils and angels, talk of… Nema, the ‘threads of time’… consorting with pagans! You are better versed in these matters than Sir Konrad himself, and do not try to tell me otherwise. The visions you have, these—” she threw her hands up in the air “—conversations with Aegraxes! You speak with the fucking gods, girl! So do not tell me that you do not fucking know!”
I sat in stunned silence. I had never seen her so angry. Von Osterlen looked away from me, immediately embarrassed at having lost her temper. She bit her lip and worked it between her teeth as she focused on something in the distance. Eventually, she stood.
“I take my leave,” she muttered.
“Wait, Severina, please,” I said, standing too and grabbing her by the wrist. She shifted quickly, instinctively, and for a moment I thought she was going to strike me. Instead, she took a deep breath, and seemed to regain herself.
I let her arm go. “Please. We have so much to contend with. Let us not contend with one another.”
She sighed, rubbing her face in her hands. Then she sat back down. “Forgive me, Helena,” she said quietly. “I am not myself.”
I waved her off, embarrassed and uncomfortable with being apologised to. “It would take someone of special character to weather the things we have been forced to endure.”
Von Osterlen snorted bitterly. “I am a margrave. A veteran. A commander of thousands. I should be able to govern myself. And yet here you are, a maid half my age and with double the grace. Do not make excuses for me.”
I was about to do precisely that, but I stopped myself. “Well. Let us not dwell on it.”
That seemed to be the appropriate thing to say, judging by her reaction. “I have spent my life, or the better part of it, fighting Saekas. Protecting pilgrims. Dominating the land of the Frontier. My gods are the Imperial gods; my church is the Neman Church. For the last twenty years I have been a sword of the Autun.” She sighed bitterly. “Now I see nothing except a life wasted. We pray to gods who have nothing for us but apathy. We revere saints who are not saints. These things we worship have never been worthy of worship. For centuries we have beseeched them in blind ignorance, like foolish children. We have woven and spun tales and parables and histories out of nothing at all, and then treated them as though they are immutable truth.” She looked at me, her face a picture of weary, angry disappointment. It radiated from her like the heat from the Kyarai sun. “Everything I have done since I was a little girl has been done in the name of Nema. And she has never cared. If a prayer is answered, ’tis nothing but serendipity. Pure, stupid chance.” Her hands balled into fists. “We have killed and maimed thousands for a goddess who does not care.”
“I do not think the gods do not care,” I said quietly.
She looked at me, arms folded. “What do you think?”
“That they are not gods.”
“They have the power of gods. And they meddle in human affairs.”
“Aye, rarely. But they cannot be beseeched for favour. They are capricious.” I shrugged. “You said it yourself. There is no difference between an answered prayer and coincidence.”
“Except agency.”
“Agency which they do not wield. At least, not in that way.” I scanned the horizon. “I am not even sure they can hear prayers. Not in the way the Church suggests.”
Von Osterlen stood, and approached the balustrade. She rested her hands on its stone surface. “Do you know what my greatest fear is, Helena? That the afterlife is not some… morally bifurcated place, where the good ascend to heaven and the evil descend to hell. But that it is just… random. A place of chaos, where the soul travels not for any reason, but for an absence of reason. A place where we go not as a reflection of who we were as people, but a place where we go as an end in itself. I should think nothing at all would be preferable. Can you imagine it?”
“I do not need to imagine it. And nor do you. We have both been.”
“Aye,” she murmured. “We have been. As argonauts, not as souls.”
Another long silence passed between us, one that slowly filled with the bustle of the city. Eventually, I said, “I have had similar thoughts before. Similar feelings. A similar… unbalancing. Now I try to look at matters in the way Sir Konrad looks at them; we do these things, expose ourselves to these truths, so that the commonfolk may live lives untroubled by warfare. To save as many lives as we can. It is not about saving or preserving the Empire; it is about saving and preserving the people who comprise it.”
“Saving and preserving them so that they may die and have their souls become playthings for Nema knows what. There may not be gods, Helena, but there are certainly demons.”
I did not know what to say. There was no answer – at least, there was not one I was equipped to provide, in spite of what she thought. “I do not have any answers. But I do know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Dwelling on it is a sure path to madness.”
She snorted. “Aye. On that we can agree.” She sighed and watched the city for a little while longer. I could tell she was in no mood to discuss the matter further.
“I am going to have a bath,” she said. “I shall see you for dinner.”
“See you later,” I said, and she left.
I sat on the balcony in silence for the rest of the afternoon, alone with my thoughts, sipping my kafé whilst the sun slowly set on the Kyarai.
That night I dreamt I was awake in the City of Sleep. Outside the window I heard a procession of demons marching through the streets. Their boots thumped in lockstep against the cobbles and they blew on horns incessantly. It sounded like screaming.
On the stone slab in the chamber, a naked couple was copulating vigorously.
The man was Vonvalt.
The woman was me.
I watched with a strange, fascinated horror as he reared over my spreadeagled form. But whilst he seemed to be thrusting mechanically and without any pleasure, his face a rictus of pain – I moaned and writhed with an aggressive theatricality.
Somewhere in the chamber, I heard a steady drip, drip, drip.
I approached the slab, heedless of the procession outside which was travelling directly past the window, until I stood but a few feet from it. Now I began to notice strange things. My body was the wrong colour, as was my hair. The woman was taller, too, and her skin was rough and calloused from years of wearing heavy armour.
I watched as my doppelganger on the slab turned to me. Vonvalt, grunting and pounding like a rutting stag, did not even seem to notice.
“Hello, Helena,” the woman said. Then she laughed, and plucked off my face, throwing it against the wall where it slapped like a piece of wet paper.
It was von Osterlen.
I reached up with trembling hands, to find that my own face had been cut away.
Von Osterlen smiled, and then let out a huge, belching vomit of blood which hit me square in the face—
When I awoke, it was just before dawn.
Tentatively, I felt my face, to find that – of course – it was intact.
I did not go back to sleep that night.
XI
Return to the Frontier
“What are borders except an admission of ignorance? A flaccidity of the human spirit? They are a man-made imposition, confected by lukewarm souls, and not the natural order of things.”
SENATOR ZLATIKA KLEMENT
The news arrived the following morning. There was no fanfare. Servants roused us, and Danai met us in the main hall.
Von Osterlen, Vonvalt and I avoided one another’s gaze.
Several wolfmen were there. One was large and grey, wearing only a pair of loose pantaloons fixed at the waist by a sash of orange, brown and black colouring. I recognised it as the livery of the Westereik Dynasty that Danai had pointed out to us in the Kasaraad – Kimathi’s brethren. He carried a large Kasari scimitar sheathed in an ornate scabbard of black lacquer and inlaid with intricate silver patterning.
The other Kasar was the Official Questioner, though I did not immediately recognise her; she was clad in robes and a hood which obscured her face.
Danai spoke to them for a little while in Kasarsprek, and I could see Vonvalt listening intently, trying to hone his skills in the language. Eventually, Danai turned to us. “The Kasaraad has acceded to your request. This is Ran-Jirika; he is a dynast, from the same house as the Imperial Warden.”
“He is Kimathi’s… brother?” Vonvalt asked.
“Yes. His selection is auspicious, and is a demonstration of great faith in you and your mission. You should be grateful,” she added, pointedly.
Vonvalt stiffened at being condescended to, but managed to perform a shallow bow in the direction of Ran-Jirika. “Gan-kur,” he said in Kasarsprek. Then he turned back to Danai. “Will you pass on my thanks and gratitude?”
“There is no need.”
We all turned. It was the Questioner who had spoken – and in Saxan, no less.
