Crucible of Chaos: A Novel of the Court of Shadows, page 1
Also by Sebastien de Castell
The Greatcoats Series
Traitor’s Blade
Knight’s Shadow
Saint’s Blood
Tyrant’s Throne
The Court of Shadows Series
Prelude: Crucible of Chaos
Play of Shadows (March 2024)
Our Lady of Blades (March 2025)
The Spellslinger Series
Spellslinger
Shadowblack
Charmcaster
Soulbinder
Queenslayer
Crownbreaker
Way of the Argosi
Fall of the Argosi
Fate of the Argosi
The Malevolent Seven
This ebook published in 2023 by
Jo Fletcher Books
an imprint of
Quercus Editions Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © 2023 Sebastien de Castell
Sigil illustrations © 2018 Avana Vana
The moral right of Sebastien de Castell to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 52943 703 4
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organisations, places and events are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook by CC Book Production
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
For all the ghosts who kindly haunted me during my childhood.
Whatever happened to you guys, anyway?
Contents
Also By
Copyright
Dedication
1. THE WARRING MONKS
PART THE FIRST: THE SIGILS OF SEVERING
2. THE ABBEY IN THE SEA
3. THE DRUNKEN PLAGUE
4. BENEATH THE WAVES
5. A DUBIOUS RESCUE
6. THE GATE
PART THE SECOND: THE SIGILS OF BINDING
7. THE BELL CHANT
8. THE PORTER
9. INTRUDERS AND INTERLOPERS
10. THE MAD AND THE MIGHTY
11. BLASPHEMY
PART THE THIRD: THE SIGILS OF TESTAMENT
12. THE ONLY QUESTION THAT MATTERS
13. IS YOUR MIND CLEAR?
14. OF HOUNDS, TRUMPETERS AND BONE-RATTLERS
15. THE KING OF HOUNDS
16. THE GAMBIT
17. THE CRESSI MANOEUVRE
18. THE HOUND’S TESTIMONY
PART THE FOURTH: THE SIGILS OF INVITATION
19. A MATTER OF FAITH
20. THE OLD DEBATE
21. THE TOWER OF VIGILANCE
22. THE QUEEN OF SWORDS
23. DEMONS
24. SOME THINGS CANNOT BE FOUGHT
PART THE FIFTH: THE SIGILS OF WARDING
25. THE INFIRMARY
26. THE WOLF’S SCARS
27. PATIENT SECRETS
28. THE DORMITORY
29. THE WRECKAGE
PART THE SIXTH: THE SIGILS OF SILENCE
30. SILENT WISDOM
31. THE MOUSE TRAP
32. THE GOOSE CHASE
33. THE LAST DOOR
34. THE LAST TESTAMENT
PART THE SEVENTH: THE SIGILS OF SELECTION
35. PRIDE
36. CIVILITY
37. CONVICTION
38. THE TRIAL SUMMONS
PART THE EIGHTH: THE SIGILS OF AWAKENING
39. THE INFERNAL ART
40. THE CRUCIBLE OF CHAOS
41. OPENING ARGUMENTS
42. THE TRIAL OF ISOLA SOMBRA
43. THE JUDICIAL DUEL
EPILOGUE
44. A MAGISTRATE AND HIS MULE
Acknowledgements
Coming Soon . . .
CHAPTER 1
THE WARRING MONKS
MOST EMINENT ARBITER of the King’s Laws, Duellist of Well-Deserved Renown and, Perhaps Boldly Stated, My Colleague in the Investigation of Matters Occult and Supernatural Pertaining to the Safety of Our Troubled Nation, I Greet You Thus, Estevar Valejan Duerisi Borros,
Rumours of theological disputes erupting between the monks of my abbey will have reached your notoriously vigilant ears by now. Though not subject to the King’s Laws, Isola Sombra nonetheless resides within your judicial circuit, and it is for this reason, as well as for your particular investigative expertise, that I seek out your assistance at this most troubling hour.
Given your often hostile attitude towards religion, you may have already deemed this a mundane ecclesiastical dispute beneath the notice of a Magistrate so highly regarded as to have been dubbed the King’s Crucible.
‘Bickering among religious zealots can neither be described as unusual or of any great importance,’ I imagine you declaring upon receiving the news, no doubt fiddling with the braids of that preposterous beard of yours (I must again remind you, Estevar, that the oiling of one’s hair is both a sign of vanity and, given those foreign scents you will insist on employing in this unwise aromatic endeavour, an offence against those downwind of you). ‘That silly old Venia,’ you will be muttering to yourself as you read this letter, ‘forever predicting hurricanes from every stray summer breeze.’
We have never been friends, you and I – indeed, our correspondences on the intersection between religion and the supernatural have often grown so heated as to make me wonder whether you are about to appear at my door with a rapier in one hand and a writ for a duella honoria in the other. Perhaps the disharmony between us is inevitable: I am a priest and you a magistrate; I serve the Gods and you serve a set of laws written by fallible kings and queens. But while I have tried many times to make you a man of faith, it is precisely that lack of faith on which I must now depend.
Something unnatural takes place within the walls of Isola Sombra. Since the murders of the gods two years ago, debates have raged as to which new divinities will take their place. What began as earnest theological enquiry has become a conflagration that will engulf us all. I fear what might ensue, should angry words turn to condemnation, and condemnation to open warfare within the abbey. My efforts to calm my brethren have failed, and my own status as Abbot of Isola Sombra diminished to an empty title and a tower from which I dare not venture.
Estevar, I have asked a trusted emissary to place copies of this letter in the hands of every travelling Bardatti troubadour passing through this duchy in hopes that one of them finds you in whichever courtroom or duelling circle your passion for justice and intemperate nature has brought you. I need a Magistrate, Estevar. I need the only Greatcoat in all of Tristia who understands both the laws of this land and the occult traditions that have both protected and plagued it in the past. My only hope is that the monks of my abbey will place their trust in the King’s Crucible to resolve the theological disputes over which my own counsel no longer holds sway.
Ride swiftly to Isola Sombra, Estevar, I beg you. It is from this holy place that religion first spread throughout Tristia. If we fail to purge the divisions between my brethren, something far more dangerous may be coming in its wake.
Venia, Abbot of Isola Sombra
PART THE FIRST
THE SIGILS OF SEVERING
The first sigils of the rite are not an unlocking, but a separation. Begin by washing and chilling the flesh, then inscribe upon the skin the symbols depicted herein, chanting the words as set forth below, and with every stroke strip away the will from the mind. Once the two are irrevocably severed, then shall the body become a canvas for your intentions.
chapter 2
THE ABBEY IN THE SEA
Out beyond the shore of the Western Sea, a great abbey towers above the waves. Tall as any castle, Isola Sombra’s treasures are the envy of princes. Its six colossal spires, armoured in stone walls impervious to the buffeting winds and pelting rains, rise up as if to taunt the gods to which they were once consecrated. The relentless fury of the storms which lately assail the abbey suggests such impertinence has not gone unnoticed. Given those same gods were murdered two years ago, an inquisitive traveller to this once holy site might wonder whose outrage now summons the tempest?
The tiny islet upon which the abbey was built centuries ago is tethered to the mainland by a half-mile-long causeway barely wide enough for two carts to pass each other
Estevar Borros had neither wagon nor horse. He slumped heavily in the saddle somewhat precariously strapped to the mule he’d purchased six months ago at the start of his judicial circuit. He’d named the beast Imperious, though the ostentatious sobriquet wasn’t due to any regal bearing evinced by the mule, but rather for the way its rain-drenched muzzle would turn every few plodding steps so it could glare at its rider and remind him precisely who was to blame for their soggy predicament.
‘The fault isn’t mine,’ Estevar grumbled, his words drowned out by the sleet and rain currently hampering their approach to the causeway. ‘Bring suit against the First Cantor if you’re so aggrieved. It was she who assigned us this gods-be-damned judicial circuit that never ends.’
Imperious offered his own grunt in reply, which Estevar took as agreement that the responsibility did indeed lie some two hundred miles to the northeast with a woman barely nineteen years of age whom fate – and the execrable former First Cantor of the Greatcoats – had placed in charge of the King’s Travelling Magistrates.
Estevar’s ice-cold fingers reached beneath the dripping black braids of his beard to pull up the collar of his muddy crimson greatcoat in a hopeless attempt to protect his neck from the beating rain. Even this small movement drew a groan from him. That damned wound . . . The seven-inch gash just above the bottom rib on his left side showed no sign of healing. This particular ache could not, alas, be blamed on the new First Cantor, but rather on Estevar’s own temper.
Staring into the thick fog ahead of them, he could almost picture that suave, conceited duellist standing there: long and lean, his blade swift as a devil’s tail, his spirit unburdened by conscience. His employer, a wealthy lord caravanner charged with the murder of his own wife, had demanded an appeal by combat after Estevar had rendered his verdict. There had been no necessity to accept the challenge; the evidence had been incontrovertible, and King’s magistrates aren’t bound to cross swords with every belligerent who disagrees with the outcome of a trial. And yet . . . there was that smirk on the too-handsome face of the merchant’s champion, as if no one so wide of girth as Estevar could possibly score a touch against him.
In fact, Estevar had won first blood. His use of an unusual Gitabrian sword bind – rather clever, he’d thought at the time – had sent his smug opponent hurtling to the courtroom floor. A single clean thrust to the forearm with the tip of Estevar’s rapier – hardly more than a scratch – had been precisely the sort of merciful and honourable declaration of victory expected of a Greatcoat. When the clerk of the court struck the bell to end the duel in Estevar’s favour, he had even extended a hand to assist the man back to his feet.
Arrogance. Sheer, wanton arrogance.
His enraged opponent had pushed himself off the floor with one hand and delivered a vicious rapier cut with the other. Worse, at the instant of full extension, he’d added injury to insult by turning his wrist to add a vicious puncture to an already deep laceration, the sort of wound that invariably leads to infection and rarely heals properly.
The King’s Third Law of Judicial Duelling was unequivocal on the matter: Estevar was the victor. Unfortunately, the local viscount, no admirer of the king’s meddling magistrates, had taken advantage of Estevar’s public humiliation to overrule his verdict. The lord caravanner had ridden away unpunished. His murdered wife was buried in an unmarked grave the next morning, denied both justice and priestly blessings.
Estevar pressed a hand over the nagging wound. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on the leather. The bone plates sewn into the lining would have protected him, had he not been so vain that he’d consented to the duellist’s demand that he fight without it.
‘Surely so redoubtable a physique, one so voluminous in vigour, needs no armour to protect the many, many layers of valorous flesh beneath?’ the tall, sleek fellow had shouted mockingly before the entire court. ‘What use those silly bone plates sewn into the lining of that preposterous garment you “Greatcoats”’ – he’d imbued the word with such irony! – ‘insist on wearing when compared to the blubber straining its seams?’
Fool of a fool of a fool, Estevar’s mother would have chided him – which was nothing compared to the lashing he could expect to receive from the preposterously young First Cantor when this last stop on his judicial circuit was dealt with and he returned to Castle Aramor.
Voluminous, he thought bitterly, pressing even harder against the wound, but failing to ease the sting. Six days and a hundred miles since he’d cleaned and sewn up the cut, but the pain hadn’t abated one jot. Worse, it now felt hot to the touch, suggesting infection. Perhaps if I survive the fever I’ll name the scar ‘Voluminous’ as a reminder to have a thicker skin in future.
‘And now what shall we do, Imperious?’ he asked the mule. ‘We’re under no obligation to heed the abbot’s request for judicial arbitration between his unruly monks. As Venia so reliably reminded us in his letter, Isola Sombra does not consider itself subject to the King’s Laws. Why should we tarry here when we could already be on our way home?’
Despite his optimistic words, Estevar had no illusions about the welcome awaiting him at Aramor once the First Cantor learned that one of her magistrates had lost a judicial appeal he’d been under no obligation to grant in the first place, only to then take a grievous injury due entirely to his inexcusable pride rather than any skill of his opponent. He would be lucky if she didn’t immediately demand he relinquish his coat of office.
Imperious swivelled his sorrel head once again, this time in an attempt to bite his rider’s hand as punishment for bringing him to this hellish place. Evidently, it wasn’t only the First Cantor to whom Estevar owed profuse apologies.
‘Let us away home then,’ he declared, tugging gently on the reins to circle his mount back towards the mainland road. ‘We’ll leave the monks to their quarrels.’
He was about to give the mule’s flanks an encouraging nudge when a voice shouted out from the mists, ‘Hold where you are!’
Man and mule both turned. The grey haze between the mainland and the causeway had thickened, distorting the voice and making it difficult to locate its source. A less experienced traveller might have heard the command of an angry ghost come to exact revenge for some long-forgotten crime. Estevar, however, had investigated many supposed supernatural apparitions during his tenure as a Greatcoat, and quickly decided this one sounded more man than spectre. He patted Imperious’ neck to calm him, but the mule lowered his head and hunched his shoulders, as if determined to leap into battle against their unknown assailant.
‘Who approaches the cursed Abbey of Isola Sombra?’ the hidden figure demanded.
Estevar closed his eyes a moment, allowing the eerie echoes to surround him. The voice was deep, confident, but that gravitas was trained rather than natural. The accent – most notably the rising inflection on the last vowel of the abbey’s name, almost as if he were saying ‘Som–brae’ – suggested a commoner raised in this duchy, not highborn himself, but accustomed to being in the presence of nobles.
He reached back for the oilcloth bag strapped behind the cantle. He’d wanted to protect his rapier from the rain and hadn’t anticipated having to fight his way into an abbey famed almost as much for its hospitality as its wealth. With his fingers chilled to the bone, the knots were proving perniciously difficult to untie. His mind, however, was moving more nimbly, envisioning the unfolding scene from the perspective of the fellow who now sought to block his passage.
He sees only a fat man in a leather greatcoat slouched wearily upon a mule, Estevar thought, someone too slow to present a genuine threat. Someone he can bully as he pleases.
This was, regrettably, a common enough conclusion on meeting Estevar Borros. A magistrate’s first duty being to the truth, he decided it was incumbent upon him to cure this new acquaintance of a potentially fatal ignorance. He coughed briefly before allowing his own deep baritone to rumble across the sandy shore.
