Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (97 page)

‘I say!’ a Brevian man exclaimed from among the bunks, ‘who’re you?’

‘Alaron, Founder of the Merozain Brotherhood. And you?’

‘Kendric Vitalis of Brevia IV.’ He pulled a puzzled face. ‘The Mero-what?’

Alaron shook Vitalis’ sweaty hand and asked, ‘Are you in charge?’

‘Me? Kore’s Blood, no! I don’t think anyone is – I’m just trying to get some sleep before I go on. It’s been a nightmare since Bassaz.’

‘What happened in Bassaz?’

‘You don’t know? Hel’s Belles, where have you been? It was a disaster! Worse than Shaliyah!’ Vitalis poured Alaron a mug of wine and motioned him to a chair before giving him a vivid account of construct-beasts going mad and destroying the army. ‘The worst is it was our own people who did it: deserter scum, men who ran at Shaliyah. Old Kaltus himself brought us south, all of us either riding or flying so we could move fast. Now Kaltus is missing and people are saying he’s
dead.
And the men coming in from the Zhassi say the First Army has
surrendered
.’

Alaron blinked. ‘Surrendered?’

‘We’re screwed, I tell you – I’m flying straight home! The only organised Rondian force left in the East are these damned deserters.’ Vitalis leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘They say Korion’s disowned bastard leads them!’

Kaltus Korion had dozens of bastards, but to be disowned implied prior legitimacy. ‘Who’s this Korion bastard?’ Alaron asked.

‘Seth Fetallink.’ Vitalis, clearly delighted to have an audience, explained. ‘Fetallink had been presumed dead at Shaliyah; then the Old Man disowned him after he’d re-emerged as commander of a band of deserters. We went south to put them in irons! Then, well . . .
chaos!
They must have done something to our construct-beasts to make them turn on us. I barely got out, I swear.’

‘Seth Korion commanded the deserters?’ Alaron asked.
Seth Korion?
His memories
of a timid young man who was permanently out of his depth didn’t align with any of this . . . except maybe the deserting part.

‘Seth
Fetallink
,’ Vitalis corrected him. ‘Never met him, but they say he’s a dirty cocksucker who sold his arse to buy his men’s passage through enemy lines.’ He dropped his voice. ‘There was something going on, something involving Pallas, because the camp was crawling with Treasury legates and Inquisitor spies.’

‘Where are these deserters now?’

Vitalis glanced nervously to the south. ‘They’re coming up the high road behind us, making for the Bridge. If Fetallink can destroy our army, what else can he do? I’ve heard he’s going to march all the way to Pallas and make himself
emperor
.’

Alaron stifled a snort . . .
But then, I was thrown out of the Arcanum as a failure, and here I am as an Ascendant with the Scytale of Corineus in my bag. What’s Seth been through?
‘His army is just a few days away, you say?’

‘Maybe only a day,’ Vitalis insisted. ‘I tell you, I’m gone, first light!’

‘Then who’s going to get the men here home?’

‘Not my problem. The damned garrison commander fled last week. It’s every man for himself! Unless you’re going to join Seth Fetallink and march on Pallas? Up to you: I don’t give a shit! This city is going to go to the dogs, I tell you.’

Kendric Vitalis clearly wasn’t going to be any further help; all he cared about was filling his skiff with plunder and flying away.
I hope his skiff runs out of gnosis-energy over the sea
, Alaron thought. But he thanked the mage and left, found Yash outside and went looking for Ramita.

He found her with Corinea in their small camp. The skiffs were almost fully primed and Ramita was anxious to return to Lokistan and Dasra.

Alaron took up a relay-stave. ‘I’ve just found out something. There’s a Rondian army marching up from the south, and I know the commander: someone from my college.’

‘A friend?’

‘Not really. Actually, he was only marginally less despicable than Malevorn Andevarion – but he’s not the same sort of person. I think I can talk to him.’

*

Ramon Sensini was riding alongside his cohort, cradling Julietta, while the rankers grinned at the sight of ‘Bastidinio’ bouncing her on his knee.

When the domes of Hebusalim came into sight, he gave the baby to one of the many Khotri wet-nurses, ignored a string of speculative comments from the cohort as to why he didn’t feed the child himself and nudged Lu into the more rarefied air around Seth Korion, who’d decided his legions would enter the environs of the Holy City looking as military as possible. So while correct uniforms were by now a rarity, their armour had been polished and the men were marching in more or less unison.

‘You know this could be a trap?’ he murmured to Seth.

The young general started. ‘Really?’ Then he laughed nervously. ‘No, no, there are no ambushes here.’ He threw an amused look at Ramon. ‘Not really.’

For a couple of days now, Seth had been behaving like he was in the know on some giant joke. It was irritating, but Ramon refused to admit he didn’t know what was going on. None of the other magi had let on either, leaving him with no choice but to grit his teeth and carry on.

They could afford to rest here for no more than a week if they were to cross the Bridge with enough time to beat the rising waves. But the men badly needed that down-time; they’d been on the march almost continuously for two months – and there were things to do here, lots of things. He needed to deal with the gold before they got to the Bridge. He needed to keep Tomasi Fuldo and Silvio Anturo onside. They had to resupply and re-equip, not to mention ensuring no nasty surprises awaited them in Pontus. So far the Rondian Empire had been utterly silent about the destruction of the cream of the Northern Army; he doubted that would last.

The Rondian staging camp on the south side, where they’d camped almost two years ago, was a burnt-out wilderness, still smouldering. The only sounds were the distant yapping of wild dogs, the cawing of the crows and the crash of timbers as the city gates slammed in their faces.

‘I guess all the talk about Hebb hospitality was just that,’ Jelaska sighed.

Seth turned to an aide. ‘Have the men make camp here. I want to have a look around.’ He glanced at Ramon. ‘Come on, Sensini.’

This was far enough outside the normal protocol – commanders never wandered off on their own – that Ramon was immediately wary. But Seth was so relaxed that he decided that whatever was going on probably wasn’t dangerous, so he affected an air of normality as they wandered into a ruined legion camp which reeked of piss and ash. The local Dhassans had clearly waited until it was empty, then destroyed anything they couldn’t salvage.

Seth turned to him, expectation all over his face. ‘So, Sensini . . .
Ramon
 . . . do you know why we’re here? I keep thinking you’ve guessed—’

‘Honestly, I have no idea.’

‘Really?’ Seth laughed aloud. ‘Wonderful! Well, here we are, you and I: alumni of Turm Zauberin Arcanum, yet together on another continent entirely! Everything is so alien, yet some things remain familiar—’

‘Si, si, I get it: skip the speech!’

Seth laughed again. ‘Very well.’ He raised his arms as if making a dramatic conjuring, and shouted, ‘
Khazza!
’

Khazza?
A meaningless phrase used by stage performers portraying magi?
Ramon poked his tongue into his cheek and wondered if he’d lost track and this was some kind of belated birthday surprise. Then on all sides gnosis-light shimmered and a dozen grey-robed young men appeared as if from nowhere. They looked like some monastic order, but they also looked like they’d faced death, and dealt it out too.

Ramon stiffened, staring. All carried staffs with ribbons knotted near one end, had long hair tied in top-knots, and clean-shaven faces. And all were Lakh – which was perplexing as well, especially as they all bore periapts and had managed to conceal their presence from him with Illusion. He’d always considered himself skilled enough that no one except perhaps a Keeper could do that to him.

He checked: their wards were impressive, not showy but very strong. The only badge they displayed was of a stylised winged man. It wasn’t an insignia he knew.

Then another figure stepped from the shadows, taller, but dressed in the same grey robes, nothing ornate. He too had a staff, but his skin was white. Ramon peered, perplexed, as the newcomer dropped the hood.

‘
ALARON?
’

A second later he was pounding on Alaron’s back and hugging him until they were both breathless. ‘
Sol et Lune, it’s really you! What in Hel, amici? What in Hel
—
?
’

Ramon barely recognised his best friend – though he was still no more than average height, and leaner than most, everything else was different. His reddish-brown hair was in a topknot like the monks, and he’d filled out with strongly sculpted muscle. His face was different too: the puppy-fat had been winnowed away, along with his usual jumpiness and uncertainty. He had the look of someone who’d seen deadly combat, and the measured assurance of someone who’d prevailed. There was something
balanced
about Alaron, a grace that had never been there before.

Is it really two years since we hunted the Scytale together? Two years!

There was also that ineffable look on Alaron’s face of someone in love, so it was no great surprise when a diminutive woman approached deferentially. She too was Lakh, very dark about the face, with trim, pleasantly determined features. Despite her size, she walked as if she were as solid as the stone beneath her feet. She had a gem-stone pasted to her forehead and long black hair in a tight ponytail, and wore one of the graceful saris he’d seen on some of the Lakh women in Khotri.

Alaron put a possessive arm about her – she just about came up to his ribcage – and beamed. ‘This is my wife, Ramita,’ he announced proudly.

‘
Your wife?
’ Ramon yelped.

Judging from Seth Korion’s startled exclamation, this was news to him too.

‘Congratulations, amici!’ Ramon looked at her wide-eyed then spread his arms. ‘May I greet the bride?’

While Ramon hugged Ramita, Alaron greeted Seth warmly; this was their first meeting too since their gnostic-contact a few days back.

‘I’d heard Seth was still alive and hoped that meant you were too,’ he told Ramon, ‘but I didn’t know, and I feared trying to scry you might put you in danger. But when Seth said you were with him, I was overjoyed.’

‘But not so overjoyed you contacted me immediately,’ Ramon said archly.

‘And miss the chance to shock you?’ Alaron laughed.

Ramon suddenly realised something. ‘You used an
illusion
 . . .’ Alaron winked, and indicated the satchel on his shoulder.

Ramon stared.

Alaron’s smile broadened, and suddenly the monks and their gnosis became explicable. Ramon’s mind froze at the need to ask a thousand things and not knowing where to start.

*

There was so much to explain, on both sides. Ramon let Alaron guide the Lost Legions magi to a vast palace, damaged but in reasonable state for all that: the abandoned Domus Costruo. ‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ Alaron said. ‘We’re supposed to fly south tomorrow – Ramita’s son is waiting for us at the monastery.’ That required more explanations, as everything did. He was still amazed at the confident maturity of his friend: clearly he’d been through immense changes.

The other monks – who Alaron called ‘Merozain brothers’ – were introduced to the Lost Legion magi, and after some initial tension, a cautious bonhomie broke out, aided by the wine Alaron’s people had found behind gnostic locks in an unlooted cellar. They all settled down to a simple meal Ramita cooked, which the legion magi survived thanks to having their taste buds tempered by their time at Ardijah, and they all spoke of their travels, skirting the hard questions.

There was an old woman, clearly a mage, with Alaron’s party. She was introduced as Lillea, an ill-omened name, and she had an unnerving manner, but she drifted, inevitably, towards Jelaska, and soon the two older women were deep in conversation in one corner with a bottle of passable merlo.

After dinner Ramon drew Alaron aside and found somewhere where they could
really
talk. There was so much to tell each other it was overwhelming, and characteristically, they both interrupted each other wildly, jumping from subject to subject. There were tears over Cymbellea di Regia; they’d both been in love with her, in their own ways. There were toasts for Julietta, and Alaron’s stepsons, Dasra and Nasatya. They whispered grimly about the death-camps and the other atrocities they’d seen, and shared a satisfied look over the demise of Malevorn Andevarion. They shook their heads over the Scytale, and the new way to harness the gnosis that Master Puravai had shown Alaron.

‘You should keep that to yourselves,
amici
,’ Ramon advised. ‘You’re going to need an edge if you plan to face down the empire and keep the Scytale.’

Alaron rolled his eyes. ‘Listen to us! Here we are, barely out of college and talking about facing down the empire!’ He dropped his voice. ‘But that’s exactly what we’ve begun doing. The Scytale and Master Puravai’s methods – both of these things are world-changing, in the right hands or the wrong ones.’

‘Then all the more reason to be careful, amici,’ Ramon told him.

The night vanished as they skipped from topic to topic without feeling they’d done any of it justice. But what was best was just being together: for six years they’d shared a room at Turm Zauberin, and talked about
everything
. Just seeing Alaron lifted Ramon’s heart in ways he could barely express.

It was dawn before they even thought about yawning, and they realised they were both a little drunk. Everyone else had drifted off to sleep, except the mysterious Lillea and Jelaska who were still continuing their cool, detached discussion in the only unbroken cupola on the roof.

‘Oh yeah,’ Alaron threw in as if it were a minor oversight, ‘Lillea? She’s really Corinea, the Queen of Evil.’