“A gift of thanks from a beautiful maiden.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Hardly. She’s half a world away and, I suspect, married to a handsome blonde fellow we used to know.”
Sherin pulled the blocks apart. “Winterbloom.”
“From my sister.”
“You have a sister? A blood-sister?”
“Yes. I only met her once. We spoke of flowers.”
She reached to clasp his hand summoning an overpowering need for her, so fierce and powerful as to almost make him forget what he had asked of Ahm Lin, forget the Aspect, the war, the whole sorry blood-soaked tale. Almost.
“Governor Aruan is arranging the ship, but we have hours yet,” he said, moving to the table where she prepared her concoctions, sitting down to unstopper a bottle of wine. “Quite possibly the last bottle of Cumbraelin red left in the city. Will you drink with a former Lord Marshal of the Thirty-Fifth Regiment of Foot, Sword of the Realm and brother of the Sixth Order?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Have I saddled myself with a drunkard, I wonder?”
He reached for two cups and poured a measure of red in each. “Just have a drink, woman.”
“Yes my lord,” she said in mock servility, sitting opposite and reaching for a cup. “Did you tell them?”
“Just Barkus. The others think I’m following on the last ship.”
“We could still go back. With the war over…”
“There’s no place for you there, now. You said so yourself.”
“But you’re losing so much.”
He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “I’m losing nothing, and gaining everything.”
She smiled and sipped her wine. “And the task the Aspect set you, is it complete?”
“Not quite. By the time we leave here it will be.”
“Can you tell me now? Am I finally allowed to know?”
He squeezed her hand. “I don’t see why not.”
It had been cold that day, colder than usual even for Weslin. Aspect Arlyn stood at the edge of the practice field watching Master Haunlin teach the staff to a group of novice brothers. Vaelin judged them as third year survivors from their age and the comparative smallness of the group. In the distance mad Master Rensial was trying to ride down another group of boys, his shrill tones carrying well in the chill air.
“Brother Vaelin,” the Aspect greeted him.
“Aspect. I request lodging for the Thirty-Fifth Regiment of Foot during the winter months.” At the Aspect’s insistence it had become a ritual between them to formally request lodging every time the regiment returned to the Order House, recognition of the fact that, funding and equipment notwithstanding, it remained a part of the Realm Guard.
“Granted. How was Nilsael?”
“Cold, Aspect.” They had spent the better part of three months on the Nilsaelin border with Cumbreael, hunting a particularly savage and fanatical band of god worshippers calling themselves the Sons of the Trueblade. One of their less savoury habits was the abduction and forcible conversion of Nilsaelin children, many of whom had been subjected various forms of abuse to force their adherence, some killed outright when they proved too intractable or troublesome. The pursuit through the hill country and valleys of southern Nilsael had been difficult but the regiment had harried the band with such ferocity they were down to barely thirty men by the time they were cornered in a deep gulley. They immediately killed their remaining captives, a brother and sister of eight and nine stolen from a Nilsaelin farmhouse a few days before, then loosed arrows at the Wolfrunners whilst singing prayers to their god. Vaelin left it to Dentos and his archers to wipe them out to a man, something he found troubled his conscience not at all.
“Casualties?” the Aspect enquired.
“Four dead, ten injured.”
“Regrettable. And what did you learn about these, what was it, Sons of the Trueblade?”
“They considered themselves followers of Hentes Mustor, believed by many Cumbraelins to embody the prophesied Trueblade from their Fifth book.”
“Ah, yes. Apparently there is an eleventh book being touted around Cumbrael, The Book of the Trueblade, telling the tale of the usurper’s life and martyrdom. The Cumbraelin bishops have condemned it as heretical but many of their followers are clamouring to read it. It’s always the way with such things, burn a book and the ashes spawn a thousand copies. It seems by killing one lunatic we have grown another branch to their church. Ironic, don’t you think?”
“Very, Aspect.” He hesitated, gathering strength for what he had to say, but as ever the Aspect was ahead of him.
“King Janus wants my support for his war.”
Does anything ever surprise you? Vaelin wondered. “Yes, Aspect.”
“Tell me, Vaelin, do you believe Alpiran spies lurk in every alley way and bush preparing the way for their armies to invade our lands?”
“No, Aspect.”
“And do you believe Alpiran Deniers abduct our children to defile in unspeakable god worshipping rights?”
“No, Aspect.”
“In that case do you think that the future wealth and prosperity of this Realm is dependent on securing the three principal Alpiran ports on the Erinean Sea?”
“I do not, Aspect.”
“And yet you come to ask for my support on behalf of the King?”
“I come to ask for guidance. The King has placed my father and his family under threat in order to ensure my obedience, but I find I cannot preserve them whilst thousands die in a pointless war. There must be some way to steer the King away from this course, some pressure that can be brought against him. If all the Orders were to speak as one...”
“The time when the Orders spoke as one is long past. Aspect Tendris hungers for war against the unfaithful like an ale starved drunkard whilst our brothers in the Third Order lose themselves in their books and watch the events of the world with cold detachment. The Fifth Order by custom takes no part in politics and as for the First and Second, they consider communion with their souls and the souls of the Departed to take precedence over all earthly concerns.”
“Aspect, I am given to believe there is another Order, with possibly more power than all the others combined.”
He was expecting some register of shock or alarm, but the Aspect’s only expression was a slightly raised eyebrow. “I see this is the day all secrets are to be revealed, brother.” He clasped his long fingered hands together and concealed them within his robe, turning and gesturing with his head. “Come, walk with me.”
Frost crunched underfoot as they walked together in silence. From the practice field came the shouts and grunts of pain and triumph he remembered so well. It made him ache with unexpected nostalgia, for all the pain and the loss of his years within these walls it had been a simpler time, before the schemes of kings and the secrets of the Faith brought darkness and confusion into his life.
“How did you come by this knowledge?” the Aspect asked eventually.
“I met a man in the north, a brother of an order long thought to be a myth by the Faithful.”
“He told you of the Seventh Order?”
“Not without persuasion and only up to a point. He did confirm that the continued existence of the Seventh Order is a secret known to all the Aspects. Although, given the recent rift with the Fourth Order I suspect Aspect Tendris remains in ignorance of this information.”
“Indeed he does, and it is vital his ignorance continues. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Certainly, Aspect.”
“What do you know of the Seventh Order?”
“That it is to the Dark as we are to war and the Fifth Order is to healing.”
“Quite so, although our brothers and sisters in the Seventh Order do not refer to the Dark. They regard themselves as guardians and practitioners of dangerous and arcane knowledge, much of which defies such mundane concepts as names or categories.”
“And would they use such knowledge to aid us?”
“Of course, they always have and continue to do so to this day.”
“The man I met in the north spoke of a war within the Faith, of some within the Seventh Order becoming corrupted by their power.”
“Corrupted or deluded. Who can say? There is much that remains known only to the vanished years. What is clear is that members of the Seventh Order came to possess knowledge best left hidden, that somehow they reached into the Beyond and touched something, some spirit or being of such power and malice that it came close to destroying our Faith and the Realm with it.”
“But it was defeated?”
“Contained might be a better word. But it lurks there still, in the Beyond, waiting and there are those called to do its bidding, plotting and killing at its instruction.”
“The Aspect Massacre.”
“That and more.”
Vaelin thought back to his confrontation with One Eye beneath the city, of what he had told Frentis as he carved the complex pattern of scars into his chest. “The One Who Waits.”
This time the Aspect’s surprise was clear. “You have been busy haven’t you?”
“Who is he?”
The Aspect paused, turning to regard the boys on the practice field. “Perhaps he’s Master Rensial, his apparent madness all these years merely a cloak for his true design. Or he’s Master Haunlin who never did say how he came by those burns. Or is he you, I wonder?” There was an unnerving intensity to the Aspect’s gaze as he turned to Vaelin. “What better disguise could there be, after all? Son of the Battle Lord, courageous in all things, apparently without flaw, loved by the Faithful. What better disguise indeed.”
Vaelin nodded. “Quite. It would only be surpassed by you, Aspect.”
The Aspect blinked slowly and turned away to resume his walk. “My point is that he remains too well hidden and no device or effort by the Seventh Order has yet revealed him. He could be a brother of the Order or a soldier in your Regiment. Or even someone with no connection to the Order at all. The prophecies are vague on the method but are clear that it is the purpose of the One Who Waits to destroy this Order.”
Vaelin frowned in puzzlement. The concept of prophecy was not a feature of the Faith. Prophets and their visions were the province of false beliefs, of god worshippers and deniers who clung to superstition they mistook for wisdom. “Prophecies, Aspect?”
“The One Who Waits was foretold to us many years ago by the Seventh Order. There are some within their ranks that have gift of scrying the future, or at least the ever changing clouds of shadow that make up the future, so they tell me. It is rare for the visions produced by such people to concur, for the shadows to coalesce into a recognisable whole, but they all agreed on two things: we will have only one chance to discover the One Who Waits and if we fail to do so then this Order will fall, and without this Order so falls the Faith and the Realm.”
“But we have a chance to stop it?”
“One chance, yes. The last brother to make a prophecy on the subject lived over a century ago, it’s said he would slip into a trance and write his visions in script more precise and artful than the most skilled scribe in the land, even though he was unable to read or write when the trance was not upon him. Shortly before he died he reached once more for his pen and left a short passage, ‘War will unmask the One Who Waits when a king sends his army to fight beneath a desert sun. He’ll seek the death of his brother and mayhap find his own.’”
The death of his brother...
“You survived two attempts on your life whilst still in training,” the Aspect went on. “We believe both were carried out by those in service to whatever malignance lurks in the Beyond. For some reason it greatly desires your death.”
“If the One Who Waits is concealed within the Order, why not simply have him kill me?”
“Either because no such opportunity has yet arisen or because to do so would have risked revealing his face and he still has much to do. But amidst the chaos of war, surrounded by so much death, he may well take his chance.”
Vaelin felt a chill that owed nothing to the icy winds sweeping across the practice field. “The king’s war is our chance?”
“Our only chance.”
“Foretold by a man scribbling in a trance more than a hundred years ago. You are willing to commit the Order to war on the basis of this alone?”
“After all you have seen, all you have learned, can you really doubt it? This war will happen whether we support it or not. The king has set his course and will not be dissuaded.”
“If it happens the Realm could fall in any case.”
“And if it doesn’t it will certainly fall. Not to warring fiefs once more but to utter ruin, the earth scorched, the forests burned to cinder and all the people, Realm Folk, Seordah and Lonak dead. What else would you have us do?”
“I couldn’t think of anything to say,” Vaelin told Sherin, his thumb tracing over the smooth skin of her hand. “He was right. It was horrible, terrible, but he was right. He told me this would be a war unlike any we have known. A great sacrifice would be made. But I must return. No matter how many of my men and my brothers fell, I must return to the Realm once I had completed my task. As he walked away he told me I reminded him of my mother. I often wondered how they came to know each other, now I suppose I’ll never find out.”
Her head lay on the table, eyes closed, lips parted, her hand still holding the wine cup he had given her. “Two parts valerian, one part crown root and a pinch of camomile to mask the taste,” he said, stroking her hair. “Try not to hate me.”
He dressed her in her cloak, tucking the scarf and blocks in the folds, and carried her to the harbour. She was light in his arms, fragile. Ahm Lin waited on the quay next to a large merchant vessel, his wife Shoala clutching his hand, her face tight with suppressed tears as she cast a forlorn gaze of the city she would likely never see again. Governor Aruan was negotiating with the vessel’s captain, a stocky man from the Far West who grew alarmed at the sight of Vaelin. Perhaps he had been one of the captains forced to watch the burning ships after the sailor’s escape attempt, Vaelin couldn’t remember, but he quickly concluded his haggling with the Governor and stomped off up the gangplank.
“The price is agreed,” the Governor told Ahm Lin. “They sail direct for the West, first port of call…”
“It’s better if I don’t know,” Vaelin cut in.
Ahm Lin came forward to take Sherin from him, lifting her easily in his muscular mason’s arms.
“Tell her they killed me,” Vaelin said. “As the ship pulled away from the dock the Emperor’s Guard arrived and killed me.”
The mason gave a reluctant nod. “As the song wills it, brother.”
“She could stay here,” Governor Aruan offered. “The city owes her a great debt after all. She would be in no danger.”
“Do you really think Lord Velsus will share your gratitude, Governor?” Vaelin asked him.
The Governor sighed. “Perhaps not.” He took a leather purse from his belt and handed it to Shoala. “For her, when she wakes. With my thanks.”
The woman nodded, cast a final hateful glare at Vaelin then a tearful glance at the city, before turning and striding up the gangplank.
Vaelin reached out to trace his fingers through Sherin’s hair, trying to burn the image of her sleeping face into his memory. “Take care of her,” he told Ahm Lin.
Ahm Lin smiled. “My song would have it no other way.” He turned to go then hesitated. “My song holds no note of farewell, brother. I can’t help but think that one day we’ll sing together again.”
Vaelin nodded, stepping back as Ahm Lin carried Sherin onto the ship. He stood with the Governor as the ship pulled away from the dock, riding the tide to the harbour mouth, sails unfurling to catch the northerly winds, taking her away. He waited and watched until the sail was a faint smudge on the horizon, until it had vanished completely and there was only the sea and the wind.
He unbuckled his sword and held
it out to Aruan. “Governor, the city is yours. I am commanded to wait for Lord Velsus beyond the walls.”
Aruan looked at the sword but made no move to take it. “I will speak for you, I have some influence at the Emperor’s court. He is famed for his mercy…” He faltered and stopped, perhaps hearing the emptiness of his words. After a moment he spoke again, “Thank you for my daughter’s life, my lord.”
“Take it,” Vaelin insisted, again holding out the sword. “I’d rather you than Lord Velsus.”
“As you wish.” The Governor took the sword in his plump hands. “Is there nothing I can do for you?”
“Actually, about my dog…”
Verniers’ Account
“And?”
Al Sorna had fallen to silence after relating his final words to the Governor. “And what?” he enquired.
I bit down my exasperation. It was becoming increasingly apparent that the Northman took no small pleasure from vexing me. “And what followed?”
“You know what followed. I waited outside the walls, in the morning Lord Velsus came with a troop of Imperial Guards to take me into custody. Prince Malcius was duly delivered to the Realm unharmed. Janus died shortly after. Your history was fulsome in its description of my trial. What else can I tell you?”
I realised he was right, insofar as recorded history could relate he had told me the entirety of his tale, providing a great deal of previously unknown information and clarification on the origins of the war and the nature of the Realm that had spawned it. But I found myself possessed of a conviction that there was more, an unshakeable sense that his tale was incomplete. I recalled moments when his voice had faltered, only slightly but enough to assure me he had been holding back, perhaps concealing truths he had no desire to reveal. Looking at the wealth of words adorning the sheets that now covered the deck around my bedroll my mood darkened as I considered the work involved in verifying this narrative, the extensive research that would be needed to corroborate such a story. Where is the truth amongst all this? I wondered.