The Prelude to Darkness Read online

  “You mind your—”

  The emperor had silenced Reuven and waved him aside. “Reuven, your brother cannot rightly stand. You can do no further hurt to him.”

  “He is a traitor, Father,” Reuven said sharply. “His life is forfeit.”

  “That we cannot allow,” Emperor Archelaus said. “You know that as well as I do, is that not true, Amos?”

  There was no answer Amos wanted to give. He looked to the ground.

  “Must we adhere to the precepts at this time, Lord Sovereign?” Talos asked. “The city lays in ruins, and our people are much less than what they were. Do they not deserve justice?”

  “They do,” the emperor replied. “But not of the grave. There will be justice enough, but we, the First Born, we cannot die. We will stand until the end of days, as was bestowed upon us by the Pantheon.”

  I shall be suffered to live, Amos thought. He wanted to laugh, but he did not want to reveal his hand. Studying the First Born, most wore blank, grim faces; Reuven brooded and Talos, if he put thought to word, surely would have defied the lord sovereign.

  HERALD!

  The dark god’s voice rang through Amos’ skull once more. It hurt, like it always did, but his body was still.

  HERALD! DEVOUR THEIR WEAKNESS!

  “Is that what you stand upon, Father?” Amos said, suddenly looking up. He eyed his brothers. Reuven and Talos were but the only ones not driven by exhaustion. “Are we not past lying to those of our blood?”

  “Amos, you—”

  “No, Father. You have no punishment that will still my words. Heh, we are the only ones who can be near these vestiges, which you have mastered to jail the dark god. Will such a gaol hold, I wonder? You have wondered the same, else you would have slain me in the battle.

  “You are aware of the temptation, the seduction, for you gave yourself to that wretched goddess. Can you say the same for your children? No, you cannot, Lord Sovereign. I am battered, but not blinded, not as you are. I see the fear and consternation in their faces, even now. If they would be taken by the Darkness, and I did not live, you could not seal Sariel away again; and however strong you think you are, the Dark God would prevail, and you know this.

  “You do not spare me by some misguided precept—but only for the preservation of your life’s blood.”

  Amos spat, and only the emperor and Reuven looked at him, their fear palpable.

  “Lucretia is far weaker than Sariel,” Amos said, grinning broadly and eying Reuven, “and Her influence all the less, whatever gifts She bestowed our father. Heh, every exertion weakens Her will. How many battles do you think Father will survive before he is too weak to hear Her fading voice? This is a conflict without end. Lord Sariel will persevere.”

  “The seal will never break,” the emperor declared.

  “Oh, but it will,” Amos mocked. “Do deliver your judgment. I tire of this.”

  “My son,” Emperor Archelaus said, his voice cracking, but still pointing an accusatory finger at Amos’ face. “You will share a like fate to your master. I shall gaol you until the end of days. You will see no light and know only darkness, lest I have need of you.”

  Amos smiled, but he would give his father no more satisfaction.

  Emperor Archelaus frowned and turned his head slightly. “And you, Jophiel.”

  Amos felt his brother shift. Jophiel’s body trembled, but not from weight, Amos knew. What did you say to him when you fled, brother? What gaol did you walk into, I wonder?

  “I gave unto you the Artifact, and it has preserved you, but you knew of your brother’s schemes long before they hatched. That cannot be forgiven. You will be sent away from your brothers, serving penance. You will learn what loyalty means. You do not know it, yet.”

  “Yes, Lord Sovereign.”

  Heh, Jophiel the craven. The obedient craven.

  One by one his brothers left, until he was alone with Jophiel and Emperor Archelaus.

  “On your feet, Amos.”

  “Yes, Lord Sovereign.”

  The emperor strode from the chamber, head held high and unafraid. Amos followed laggardly, each step an effort, even with Jophiel’s support.

  “Did I not tell you it would be so?” Jophiel whispered softly. The emperor did not turn. “It is ruin that you wrought, for both of us.”

  Amos suppressed a smile and trudged on.

  Ruin, dear Jophiel, is what we desire.

  Book II

  The Indomitable

  Honour and Steel

  Dusk

  17 September 14810

  Justine entered the decrepit tavern in the slums of Trank.

  Few drinkers sat at the tables, but those that did had grimy and muddy faces. One man looked to her briefly: both his front teeth were missing, his beard was long and unkempt, and his eyes were small and pale. He shook his head mournfully, then stared at the dregs in his mug and drank once more.

  It is all they know, she thought, scanning the tavern. A hearth took most of the northern wall, though it was yet to be lit. A long bar stood to the west, but between it and the far wall was a single door where a large, burly man with arms crossed stood sentry. That is where I must go. Let this wretched affair come to an end.

  She waved her hand, signaling the five other knights to follow her. They were hooded and cloaked like she was, ordered not to speak unless they must. For king and country, she mused.

  “Where do you think you be goin’?” the burly man declared before Justine reached him. “Bar be back that way.” He pointed to a skinny bartender mopping up his counter with very little effort. “Might be you lookin’ for a swill o’ piss before the night is out?”

  Justine reached into a hidden pocket in her cloak and presented a worn parchment. Lord Arthur assured her the insurgents would accept it. She believed him.

  The burly sentry seemed to read the parchment over a few times, mumbling a few words aloud. A couple of the knights chuckled behind, and Justine allowed herself a brief smile, though she knew it was cruel to make light of illiterate men.

  “You are one o’ us, then,” the sentry said at last, and stood aside as he handed back the parchment. “There is no need for hoods when you get down there. We are all friends.”

  “My thanks, good man,” she said quietly, shouldering past the sentry. She had no intention of obliging.

  The steep stair was dark and dreary, lit only by guttering torches that revealed little. It turned once before emptying into an immense hall. There a stage was erected on the western end, with rows of benches growing out from the centre with round tables scattered about on either side. Justine saw a small crowd milling about, but there was still many more to come.

  Wordlessly, she sent her knights across the hall. They knew to listen and wait. Justine scanned the hall and chose a table at the back of the room.

  She flapped her cloak around the back of the simple wooden chair and sat down, back to the corner. Pulling her hood tightly, she knew others would come to the table, but would give them no hint of who she was.

  That was of more import than aught else.

  Looking about the hall, Justine thought the priests and priestesses kept to each other; some held leather bound tomes, but others held charms and wore beaded bracelets. Occasionally, men in smooth, creaseless doublets walked into groups of the faithful. The preachers nodded their heads slightly, though she thought they looked uncomfortable.

  No more than two or three men sat by themselves, who wore foppish hats and creased tunics worn with wear. She thought them peevish merchants, more concerned with their own stock than any other plight. Every so often well-to-do nobles went among them, though only women held their attention for long. Men do not change, not a whit.

  Even after nearly an hour, there were not as many as Lord Arthur had told her. She expected the hall to be filled to the brim, but it was only half full at best. Mayhap they are at other meetings, she acknowledged. The king wants this done quickly and quietly. They will be in the gaols soon e
nough.

  Two men chatted merrily as they approached her table. Justine looked away, but it did not stop them. When they took a seat, she offered them a brief glance. The first was clearly a priest in far too long white robes, red faced with bright blue eyes. The other was cloaked with a deep cowl, though his large, hair-covered hands gave him away for a man. She tried to take measure of him, but her eye caught only the sparkle of a gemmed necklace. A noble or well-off trader. She inclined her head to both men, and they returned the gesture before talking quietly to each other.

  She was glad of it.

  Three men walked about on the stage. Closest to the fore was a priest of middling height, his hands clasped behind buoying white robes of the Faith. The man turned his head but for a moment, and Justine saw brown eyes like almonds, and a warm, welcoming face. She did not know who it was; one preacher seemed much like another.

  To the right of the priest was a lanky man in an unadorned doublet; he wore a small, flat cloth hat that draped over the left side of his head. The man seemed to sneer as he talked, motioning with his beringed fingers with every word. A trader, no doubt, Justine surmised. Even nobles have that arrogance, but seldom do they flaunt it so easily as this one does.

  The last man was short but barrel chested, his brown hair cropped short, though he was garbed in an exquisite green and gold doublet. He stood attentive, seemingly preferring to listen than talk, kindly taking in every word spoken. Such are the tactics of nobles: let the mules bray, and once they’ve said their peace, tell them why they are unequivocally wrong.

  Shaking her head, she turned her eyes towards the rest of the hall. It was far busier than before, but it did not look to be much more filled. She spied Lady Amerie on the eastern wall; she simply nodded her head, but that was enough. They were prepared.

  Justine just had to learn what these men meant to do.

  “Friends!”

  She looked towards the stage. The preacher stood at the fore. “It warms my heart to see so many gathered in this hall in such a trying time.” The priest paused and frowned noticeably. “And indeed, my friends, the times are trying—we must stand together against the shadow that looms over us.

  “Gone are the days when Mother’s children can stand upon a street corner and spread Her word.” The priest paused once more, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “I know not all here adhere to Her word, and though it pains me that you have not felt Her embrace, you must know that knights with bared steel is unbefitting of our king. Indeed, I have discovered my brothers and sisters of the cloth dead in alleyways, or bloated in the rivers. I plead before the king for justice, and he says naught but that only justice is the king’s justice.

  “Is this what we should stand for, one and all? That we leave justice in the hands of a king who shows mercy for none but himself and his own affairs? If you would think not of Mother’s faithful, think to your own: your brothers and sisters, your own children. What if they made some affront to the king which seems only too easy in these trying days? Would you not cry for justice as I have, and when the king summarily dismisses it, will you feel what I feel?

  “My friends! We should not feel this way. If the king’s justice shall not protect Her church and Her people, should we not find a king who will, wherever he may dwell?”

  The priest peered out at the fore, listening as the crowd murmured noisily and grinned all the while. Justine smiled briefly at the two men at her table who chatted away incessantly; the priest encouraged her and cloaked man to take action. The cloaked man waved his hairy hand, desiring to hear from more than the good father.

  Then the priest at the table looked at Justine squarely. She waved her support away, much as the cloaked man did, and the priest slumped his shoulders, disappointed.

  The priests and priestesses clamoured about, but the nobles and traders remained undecided. Such words, such consent, that is enough for the executioner’s axe, but if the faithful suddenly lose their heads, would that not bring unrest to the hearts and minds of the people? No, it is not enough.

  The priest and the cloaked man were discussing some other point, and Justine looked across the hall to Amerie, who had one hand in the air and the other on her steel. Justine shook her head, and the knight relaxed.

  More, I need more.

  “Father Curtis, you have my most esteemed thanks for your words, though the words are old to my weary ears,” the well-dressed man in the exquisite green and gold doublet declared. The priest inclined his head, allowing the noble to take the fore. “Yet I would share what many have yet to learn; and these affairs are much to my own sorrow.

  “Ah, but before that, a name must be in order: I am Lord Theodore Rusels.”

  Lord Theodore Rusels? Justine thought incredulously. The knights had learned much of these inciters and miscreants, but they were all lesser lords, provincial patrons, and up jumped merchants who stumbled on a favourable market. If this noble had not lied, he was a powerful lord in the king’s favour; his house owned much of the farmland in the eastern reaches of the kingdom, and remained the sole purveyor of grain to the great cities for decades.

  A man, seemingly, who had all to lose.

  Justine rested her elbows on the table and listened intently. Though the lord was indeed a traitor, Lord Arthur would be much interested to learn what a rival held so dearly.

  “Quiet now, quiet now,” Lord Theodore beckoned, waving his hands down. Silence slowly filled the hall. “I am not a catspaw of the king, nor do I deceive you in coming here. Even I, a lord of a high house, cannot stand for what the king has decreed, or what he has not. You see, there have been secret councils and strange decrees. No longer does the royal treasurer sit in small councils, or indeed even the knight-commander. Nay: t’would seem that the king prefers the council of an outsider who does not give a name. It is this nameless monster who has thrown the faithful unto the gaols, never to see the light of day again!”

  The crowd murmured once more, but louder. Justine saw that the cloaked man near her tensed, gripping the wooden table so hard that his knuckles turned white. A noble, my cloaked friend? A faithful lord, perhaps, who takes an affront to such acts?

  “Do not doubt!” Lord Theodore shouted over the noise. “I stood in court for near every day since I took lordship of my house from my father. I have seen the patrons from the provinces, merchant lords, lesser lords, even the smallest men and women from the streets of Trank to the far western mountains. King Adrian sat upon the Lion Throne and heeded every word that was spoken, and offered in judgment, fair as I have ever seen. Then, when this monster appeared in the kingdom, the lords who had spoke against these new councils, the king was not kind and just—he grimaced, disgusted at what he heard, dismissing the impertinent fools, as he called them. Not once had I seen them in court again.”

  “Where did they go, my lord?” a man asked from the crowd.

  “To the gaols, along with the faithful!” Lord Theodore replied. “Bound and chained for the simple act of asking the question: why? It is not safe for the faithful nor the powerful. No longer will I risk my house in this wretched kingdom.”

  The crowd shouted back and forth; some demanded proof, others cried that the disappearances of the faithful and the confessions of the lord were enough. The cloaked man at Justine’s table was of the mind that the lord’s word was quite enough, and the priest seemed to agree.

  Then Justine looked across to Amerie, who once more stood at the ready, but Justine shook her head.

  The trader had yet to speak, and she wanted to hear his words.

  “Is it proof that you are demanding, yes?” the trader said, brushing past Lord Theodore. He squinted his eyes, taking in the assembly. “One would think that missing priests and lords would suffice, but you lot are inscrutable as they come!” He bent over laughing and some in the crowd murmured uncomfortably. “It is well that I, the traveling merchant Irwin Kole, ascertained the proof that you need. It was not the trip I expected when I set out from the river l
ands, ah, but we find bounty in the most unexpected of places.”

  “Where is the proof!?” a woman demanded.

  “Ah yes, the proof!” Irwin declared, rubbing his beringed fingers against his chin. “It is said in my homeland that coin flows as freely as the river. Just so. I have been to these gaols oh so deep beneath Castle Marcanas. Ah yes, a little brandy here, a touch of cider there, a fat pouch of coins, and even the most stalwart guardsman and gaoler will happily part with keys to cells that a man wishes to see. I saw them one and all: weakened, starving, wretched. It turned my face pale.”

  “That is not proof, Irwin Kole.”

  Justine snapped her head across the hall. She did not believe the words. Amerie crossed her arms beneath her breasts, speaking pointedly.

  Look at me Amerie, look at me!

  She never did.

  “Ah, now there is a friend of Irwin Kole’s. All the women are,” he said grinning. “You have me at a disadvantage. I do not know your name.”

  Amerie leaned forward and said, “You will learn my name when you offer proof.”

  Small mercies she has kept some of her wits, Justine thought.

  “Let it not be said that I do not accede to the wishes of the gentler sex,” Irwin said pleasantly. “Maurice, do call upon our dear friend, Father Frederick.”

  A large man near the door to the hall banged upon the wood, and between two men an elderly priest limped forth. There were a few wisps of hair left on his head, but his face was bruised and blotched, and he could put little weight on his legs. Justine had seen men bent and broken, but this priest looked like a corpse. The men let the father drop before the stage, and he held on with all his fading strength.

  “My thanks,” Irwin said, before hopping down from the stage. “I would ask that you all forgive the crudity in this.” The merchant withdrew a dagger from a sheath at his hip, brandishing it all the while. Instinctively, Justine reached for the hilt of her sword, but soon realized it was in vain. Irwin cut away what remained of Father Frederick’s white robes, revealing a brand on the father’s back, depicting a crouched lion.