“Yes. So?”
“Are you going to preach to me, Master?” Count Raymone was intimidating. He was tall, lean, dark, and seemed older than his twenty-four and a half years. He had a long scar over his left eye that made him look more ferocious than he was. Swollen and discolored, it was still healing.
Brother Candle raised a brushy gray eyebrow. “I’d rather you call me Brother.”
“I have Maysalean evangelists in my family, Brother. I recognize the light in your eye that means a bout of holy instruction is due to begin.” The Count was known for his sardonic sense of humor.
Brother Candle’s other eyebrow jumped up. Then he chuckled.
“That won’t work, either, Brother. I feel no need to be your pal. You people are transparent manipulators.”
“Then I bow to youth’s need to make its own mistakes.”
“Transparent.”
Brother Candle gave up. Count Raymone would give him no foothold. It was too late, anyway. Hell’s tendrils had been creeping into the End of Connec for years. Illtempered time had begotten evil pups.
He was wasting it trying to stem the cruel tide. His obligation now was to preserve and cherish what little he could.
He snorted. A Seeker After Light, a Perfect, did not entertain such conceits as Hell. Hell existed only in the Episcopal mind. The more primitive Chaldarean cults, on the far reaches of the world, believed in an Adversary but not in a Pit of Eternal Torment. Brother Candle did not know how the Hell concept had crept into the western form of Chaldareanism. In other strains, as was the case in the ancestral Devedian and Dainshau religions, all punishment and reward happened right here, right now, in this world.
The Deves and Dainshaus should have had the wickedness hammered out of them by now. Their God and the Chaldareans had been punishing them forever. “You are amused, Master?”
“Brother. My thoughts veered to the plight of those who reject the Path. These days they must believe their gods particularly spiteful and callous.”
“And no less do they deserve, bending their knees to the Tyranny of the Night.”
And there lay the paradox of the world.
God was real, if long unseen. All gods were real. Sometimes they reached into the mortal world. Every demon, devil, and sprite ever imagined was real, somewhere. Spirits of tree and river and stone were real. Things that lay in wait in the dark were painfully real and still found even in lands where the ruling faith officially denied them. Even in the End of Connec, which had been acclaimed as tame since the days of the Old Empire, night things were hidden away. The little ones remained where they’d always been, in the forests, in the mountains, in ancient stone circles ignorant people thought had been erected by giants.
They avoided notice because in the End of Connec they were far from any source of power. They would never grow into anything more terrible than what they were. They avoided notice because whenever their presence became obvious Episcopal spirit hunters came to destroy them.
Bigger things of the Night were bound into statues or stones and buried beneath crossroads, or into magical swords or enchanted rings seldom used because they were inherently treacherous, or into the tombstones and gateway arches of old-time pagan cemeteries. Such few as had survived the cleansing unleashed by the sorcerer-captains of the Old Brothen Empire.
Once there had been those powerful enough to be accounted gods or godlings. Those were dead or their power and being had been scattered in a thousand fragments of broken stone by the conquering world-tamers of old. The world preferred them scattered and harmless if they could not be permanently destroyed.
Permanent was difficult when belief could quicken the most lost from any stray wisps of power.
There were individuals who could pull them back together. Sorcerers hungry for power. Though in the west no man had become that powerful for more than a dozen centuries. Here, men of talent were, inevitably, drawn into the Collegium. Where they endured constant monitoring by others like themselves.
Or they perished.
Brother Candle said, “My creed won’t let me bless what you do, Count Raymone. And yet, what you do, however ruthless, has to be done to stem the tide of darkness.”
Where darkness and the Night were real forces, not personifications of evil. They could not be that.
They were neither good nor evil. Not till someone decided and painted the label on, like a caste mark on the forehead. Or until someone used them to evil purpose.
Brother Candle was at peace with his conscience. He had done all that he could do. But he was troubled, even so. More was wakening than just the rage, greed, and lust of mortal men.
***
TWO DOZEN SOLDIERS DEMONSTRATED SOUTH OF CARON ande Lette, drawing the attention of the mercenaries. Bishop Farfog moved to confront them, contemptuous of their numbers.
The villains who remained with him were not bright enough to worry about a handful of men who seemed determined to bait them.
The Bishop himself did not see that — though he was supposed to think these few wanted to lead him into a trap. Count Raymone Garete’s clever strategy nearly foundered because his enemy was too stupid to be suspicious.
Inertia and laziness kept the Grolsachers from charging. Plus a dim fear that the defenders of Caron ande Lette, all twenty-two, might fall on them from behind.
While the few demonstrated and the Raults waited, Count Raymone’s troops slipped past, out of sight, to the west, taking care to raise no dust. A few passed to the east, too, filtering through the trees along the river’s edge. The demonstrators withdrew. The Grolsachers resumed taunting the besieged and dodging the occasional arrow.
The demonstrators reappeared next morning. With two hundred friends. When some mercenaries considered following the example of friends smart enough to take off earlier, they discovered Connecten companies behind them. They watched their pathetic camp be overrun.
There was not much of a fight. The Grolsachers scattered, suffering their casualties on the run.
The Connectens only pursued those who did not flee in the direction they wanted. Back along the river, toward home. Where they found themselves ambushed, pinned down by archers, then set upon by heavy infantry.
That left the river. The Connectens let them be once they entered the water.
Bishop Farfog was one of the few who swam well enough to reach the far bank. Having abandoned his armor and plunder.
Brother Candle arrived while Count Raymone’s men were burying the mercenary dead, some of whom had not yet stopped breathing. They had no need to lay down any of their own. The rabble had scattered before the Connectens suffered any damage.
The Perfect Master saw no one who had died of wounds from the front. Many looked like they had been murdered after their capture. Few prisoners had been retained.
Which fit Count Raymone’s character. The Count believed that the best way to discourage attacks on the Connec was to obliterate anyone inclined to attack, leaving the corpses to the scavengers.
Brock Rault and his brothers were behind what courtesy was being shown the fallen.
The Perfect Master walked the killing fields in sadness. The mercenaries, refugees and Grolsachers alike, were the poorest of the poor. The dead often even lacked weapons worth looting. They had counted on arming themselves with weapons taken from their victims.
Nor was that new. Grolsach in particular produced poor, would-be killers the way Ormienden produced wines and the End of Connec generated songs, poetry, paintings, and marvelous tapestries.
Grolsachers led by Adolf Black had joined the illfated Arnhander incursion that ended with the Black Mountain Massacre. Two years before that, thousands of Grolsachers, again in service to Arnhand, perished in that kingdom’s defeat at Themes, when the King of Arnhand tried to enforce his dubious rights in Tramaine.
Brother Candle joined Brock Rault and his siblings, Booth, Socia, and Thurm. Brock and Booth were thoughtful, Thurm unsettled. Socia was totally bloodthirsty. She w
anted to put heads on poles facing the Grolsach border.
Brother Candle observed, “The human species has an attention span like that of a bluebottle.” Flies became more numerous by the hour. Had Brother Candle entertained any strain of paganism he might have recalled that pre-Chaldarean Instrumentality known as Lord of Flies, Lord of Maggots, Prince of Ravens, or Rook. Rook was the last god who visited battlefields. He followed Ordnan, god of battles, Death, and Hilt, or the Choosers of the Slain. The latter collected the greatest heroes, whole. Hilt collected only the souls of those deemed unworthy of the Hall of Heroes.
Rook was Corruption incarnate.
Rook’s thoughts summoned all flies and carrion eaters when men gathered for war. Before the coming of the Episcopal Chaldarean faith. Those old Instrumentalities were gone, now. Supposedly. More or less.
Modern man hoped. And prayed to his newer, gentler gods.
The ghosts of the harsher gods never left the collective consciousness. They would be reborn if enough people needed them and called them forth. If the wells of power produced sufficient surplus for Instrumentalities to grow.
Socia offered a disquieting thought. “Maybe the Connec itself is a corpse, drawing flies.”
Brother Candle shuddered. There was a mad edge to the girl-child’s voice. Perhaps she was sensitive to the Instrumentalities of the Night. He observed, “The Grolsachers never learn. Their adventures all turn into catastrophes. The people who hire them will not learn, either. Why don’t they notice that anyone who hires Grolsachers always stumbles into a disaster?”
Socia laughed. “You’d have to figure they’re due for a win. Wouldn’t you?”
Brother Candle exchanged looks with the girl’s brothers. Brock Rault shook his head. Socia had seen the elephant nose to trunk. She had helped abuse the mercenaries cut down in front of the gate. None of that had disturbed her in the least.
The girl had no grasp of Maysalean principles. Brother Candle reminded himself that all religions came plentifully stocked with people who paid no attention to what they were about. Some became powerful in the hierarchy of their faith. And had to swim rivers when their villainy flashed back in their faces.
The Usurper Patriarch Sublime V was the man Brother Candle had in mind, though the accusation could have been laid at the feet of most of the Brothen Episcopal Collegium.
On another level, Brother Candle was deeply concerned about the supernatural impact on the conflict.
There had been a sharp increase in encounters with things of the Night since the Black Mountain Massacre, in that region. The violence and emotion here was sure to attract the eyes of the Night, as well.
2. Brothe, with the Captain-General
Piper Hecht swore in the Episcopal fashion. “God’s Blood! Can’t those people leave me alone for a single night?”
Anna Mozilla’s full lips twisted in a sneer. “You missed the night, eh? And the afternoon before it? And this morning? I’m wondering if my feelings ought to be hurt, Mr. Captain-General.”
Piper took a second to make certain his mistress was teasing. Anna did demonstrate occasional, unpredictable fits of selfpity.
She said, “It’s Pinkus Ghort. His own self.” Imitating Ghort’s Grolsacher speech habits. “So it must be serious.”
Hecht’s old campaigning companion commanded the Brothen City Regiment, a task as thorny and thankless as herding cats. Ghort faced constraints and demands as distracting as those plaguing the Captain-General himself. Ghort would have a good reason for appearing in person, in the rain.
“It must be.” Hecht went to the door. Anna had admitted no one. Only Piper Hecht and one maid ever entered her home. Ghort and his man Polo waited on the tiny stoop.
The warm rain had wakened the rich aromas of the street. Sadly, it was not heavy enough to wash anything away.
“Some major shit coming down, Pipe. We need to jump on it. Fast.”
“What?”
“Clearenza. Fon Dreasser repudiated his oaths to the Patriarchy. They haven’t heard at the Castella.
Yet. Sublime’s gonna shit himself.”
There would be more. Clearenza’s defection was not unexpected. Duke Germa fon Dreasser was inconstant, to be generous. His allegiance shifted between the Grail Empire and the Patriarchy with every change in the political breeze. But this time the change could have more than indifferent consequences.
Sublime V owed Germa and the syndics of Clearenza eighteen thousand gold ducats against past-due loans taken to finance the Calziran Crusade. Which had been expected to be self-financing through plunder. That expectation having been stillborn. The little wealth to be found had gotten into the hands of Sublime’s Imperial and Direcian allies. Lately, Sublime had stopped even pretending that he would meet his obligations. He had stopped making interest installments to the Clearenzan consortium.
“And?”
“He’s asked for the Emperor’s protection.”
Although unsurprising, that made no immediate sense. The Grail Emperor, Lothar, was a sickly boy not expected to survive the year. Though he had not been expected to survive any of his previous fifteen.
Hecht said, “I smell Ferris Renfrow. I don’t have a horse.” Hecht seldom rode inside the city, despite his standing.
“Renfrow. Got it first toss, I’ll bet. We brought extra mounts.” A dozen horsemen waited up the narrow street, only now aware that the Captain-General had come out.
“Let me get …”
Anna handed him his winter cloak. It was heavy for the season but would keep him dry during the ride to the Chiaro Palace. She kissed him. Ghort chuckled. Skinny old Polo averted his gaze and reddened.
The horsemen came up. Hecht recognized none of them. No doubt their loyalties lay with Pinkus and his sponsor, Principate Bronte Doneto. But Hecht had no reason to mistrust Ghort. No reason to be uncomfortable with the situation.
Ferris Renfrow was a sinister figure close to the Grail Emperor. He had been close to Lothar’s father, Johannes, as well. Renfrow’s work in the shadows had made Johannes Blackboots powerful and kept his fragile successor free of challengers now, within the Empire and without.
The Patriarch, Sublime V, had anticipated a respite. The Imperial crown would pass to Lothar’s sister, Katrin, next. But Lothar refused to die. And his Empire kept after the Patriarchy like a pack of hounds, trying to reduce the Church’s temporal power. More so now than had been while Johannes was alive.
The young Emperor blamed Sublime for his father’s death. And Renfrow fed his bitterness.
That contest would not end while the New Brothen Empire survived.
Hecht could not imagine the Chaldarean Episcopal Church collapsing into history’s dust. Much as he might long for that end, secretly. Too many men had too much invested in the institution.
Hecht swung aboard a gray palfrey. He thought some of Ghort’s men looked unusually nervous. “What’s the trouble?”
“You don’t know? You need to pay more attention, Pipe. The Night’s been active lately. Even by day.
There’s been a string of mystery murders. Really violent. Really messy. Victims all torn up. The rumors blame night monsters. People are praying that that’s really the cause.”
These men were veterans. They should not be troubled. Should they? “There’s a less pleasant alternative?”
“Yes.”
“A madman?”
“The kind who kills to conjure ugly spirits. Eaters of souls.”
Hecht shivered. He had seen and suffered a lot during his thirtysome years. But there were worse things out there, uglier, more evil things, than ever he had seen. Worse things waiting in the night.
‘That sounds like Sheard savages, Pinkus. Not Brothens.”
“I don’t think that’s it. I mention it for the sake of completeness. People mostly want to look on the dark side. And there ain’t no Grand Marshes anymore, way I hear tell.”
“What?”
“I know you don’t pay attention to anything but
Anna and your job. Word is, the marshes are drying up.
Principatè Delari could tell you. He has priests all over sending in reports about the changes going on.
Like the ice and snow piling up in the high mountains. Like the water level in the Shallow Sea dropping the height of a man. So that all those marshes up there are draining out and drying up. And freezing over permanent on their northern side.”
“That makes sense. I guess. It wasn’t obvious when I left.”
Ghort shrugged. He did not much care about changes going on a thousand miles away. He did not have that kind of mind.
Piper Hecht was glad the man he was around most was shallow and self-absorbed. When talk grew uncomfortable he could divert it just by mentioning wine or the hippodrome. Ghort and the grape got on much too well. And the hippodrome preoccupied most everyone in season.
“So what’s special about this killer? What makes him a celebrity?”
Brothe was the world’s second largest city, first honors going to Hypraxium in the Eastern Empire.
Hypraxium enjoyed a thoroughly decadent reputation. But Brothe had its dark side. Murder was a fact of life. Law was mostly a private matter.
Some murders always fell outside common understanding.
“I can’t tell you anything more than I have. I don’t get out to find out what the poor and the squatters are saying these days. I just know people are scared. And the Collegium won’t take it seriously.”
“Is it like when the soultaken were here?” That part of his past Hecht understood only because his current mentor, Principatè Delari, had taken pains to find out what he could about those divinely possessed butchers. Which had been very little.
“They just killed people to make money to get by till they could do whatever it was that their managing Instrumentalities wanted done.”
Only the soultaken knew they had been elected by their gods to destroy a mortal those Old Ones called the Godslayer, a slave-soldier of far Dreanger. Else Tage, one of the most capable captains among the Sha-lug. Sent to Firaldia by Gordimer the Lion on behalf of the Kaif of al-Minphet, to blunt Sublime V’s lust for new crusades.