Tides of Rythe (The Rythe Trilogy) (8 page)

*

Chapter
Eleven

Reih sobbed into her sleeves. Great, hacking coughs accompanied her tears, her chest heaving with exertion as she desperately tried to stop. Her ally had been murdered within her halls – and she had no choice but to watch it.

Reih’s friend and fellow councillor had been talking to one of the Protectorate. The Protocrat’s face was covered by the cowl of his hood but that did not matter. Reih could see who it was easily enough despite that. The oversized hands, pale and stark against the black robe. There was no doubt in her mind that it was Tun, head of their Search Division – a not so secret police force within the obscene mass of the Protectorate’s forces.

But still, with the Kuh’taenium’s sickness…some of the memories were already fading, imperfect. It could so easily have forgotten, but it had held onto this memory and forced it upon its sister, Reih. She wished she had remained ignorant, but it was too late for that.

Through a clearing mist that enveloped her mind, as it always did when the Kuh’taenium communicated with her, she heard Guy say, “You’ve got spies all over the place, it is not good enough! This must stop if the human council is to function.”

She saw that the Protocrat had smiled under his hood, the light of the halls illuminating only his lips – his teeth did not show. There was no mirth in that smile. “It does not matter,” Tun told Guy. “The Kuh’taenium is finished anyway. It is just a matter of time – it is sickening because the Protectorate are weakening it by taking away the living beings inside – all the councillors.”

Guy had known he would die. He had signed his own death warrant within council chambers when the Interpellate had petitioned for Tirielle’s disbarment. Still, she had not expected that such a barbaric act would, or could, take place within the pristine halls of the Kuh’taenium.

The scene, through her link with the building, played over in her mind. She saw through hazing vision a knife and/Guy lunges for the Protectorate. She heard the tang as the thin blade hit the metal under the robes/diagonal hoops of metal all through the ranking officer’s armour. Not the greatest defence and a blade will still go through but as the hoops cannot be seen by an attacker they would not know their location. She watched the blade fall to the floor and/it was suddenly protruding from Guy’s gagging throat, the councillor slain by his own blade. He died and hit the floor. The assailant did not move while Guy lay dying, but she could imagine a cold smile played on Tun’s face as he watched Guy’s life drain into the stone.

Reih sobbed for her friend and for herself. That the attacker had been Tun was not the most troubling thing. Nor that Tun must know she had seen him. No, it was that the Kuh’taenium itself was no longer safe from the Protectorate. Its protections meant nothing. It was all ending. She did not understand why the Protectorate were only now destroying the council. That, she thought, was the most important thing to remember. If she could discern the reason for this attack on the seat of human government, perhaps she could fight it. Did the Hierarchy know what was going on? Was it on their orders that the Protectorate acted, or were their dogs free of their leash?

She didn’t know, but of one thing she was certain – to save the Kuh’taenium, she must find out.

The Protectorate knew, as she did…the Kuh’taenium remembered.

*

Chapter Twelve

Further to the south, Klan Mard was unaware of Tun’s assignment. Jek, the leader of the Speculate and thus the iron ruler of the Protectorate’s forces, failed
to inform any of the Speculatae
of all his plots. As Speculate, it was expected for him to retain a certain degree of autonomy. He was a juggler – the Speculate’s other twenty members the knives. Klan knew this. He also knew that it was acceptable, within certain parameters, for any Speculate member to do what they thought was necessary for the good of the whole.

He was, in his own mind, fulfilling that very requirement while he visited his favourite creation in the depths of the library. He breathed in the musty odour of ancient parchment and vellum, the dust heavy and cloying, but Klan appreciated the smell.

Soft candlelight flickered within the gloom, creating waves of light. One of these granted sparse illumination to the book Fernip Unger was absorbing. Within its glow, Klan put one hand on the Protocrat’s shoulder, leaning forward to absently flick the pages of the book, to the consternation of the reader.

Klan himself was a man of letters. He chuckled to himself – his bones were carved from letters. He had, in a moment of inspiration, etched the entire archive of the Protectorate onto his bones, a feat he accomplished even though he had been newly ascended at the time. His bone archive was his to peruse whenever he had the time, but there were many books outside the archive that only a Protocrat with a true scholar’s mind could understand. There were too many ancient languages, riddles and obscurities contained within the Ordanal’s vast library. It took a man of specific talents to discern what was important and what was mere chaff, to be ignored (never discarded, though). That was Fernip Unger’s job.

Fernip, on the other hand, was not quite as keen as Klan. When it came to feelings, Fernip had even less than his master, the leader of the Anamnesors. Partly it was because he had never been a passionate creature, partly because he was dead. The dead tend to be a less emotional than the living.

Fernip sighed, and more dust joined the musty air. His lungs no longer required oxygen, but his muscles still worked and breathing was a habit that was hard to forget. He had been rejuvenated, so that he looked like a much younger man, but in reality he was in his hundreds. But then, what does age matter when you are immortal?

Klan had needed the best for his elite division, and he had not let terminal cancer spoil his plans. He had healed the ancient reader of his illness, but in the process had created a walking, talking cadaver.

A mild side effect, thought Klan. He should be happy, but no, he frowns constantly and shows me no gratitude when I come to visit.

Klan si
ghed inwardly – he was not one
to make friends easily. He understood this. Still, if he wanted companionship, and a friendly face, he always had his delegation.

The thought of his collection of grinning faces, which adorned the ceiling of his quarters, gave him comfort. Holding the thought in his mind, he turned his attention back to the reader.

“Any news for me today, Master Reader?”

“I haven’t been to the toilet for months.”

Klan smiled without humour. The dead could be so droll.

“I meant, Master Reader, have you discerned the location of the red wizard’s resting place, as I asked?”

“I have too few scrolls to work with. Much of what was written about the wizard is merely fantasy and legend. I need access to a wider library. I fear there is little within our archives I have not already trawled.”

“Well, what have you found? I did not give you the gift of immortality so you could while away your time engrossed in frippery and erotic tales.”

“If there is one thing I have learned during my living years, and a lesson that has been drummed into my very bones since my untimely, and somewhat unusual death, it is the value of patience.”

“I could always kill you again.”

“I live in hope, Anamnesor.”

Klan smiled coldly. “Careful what you wish for, Master Reader. Now, as you were saying…”

“I don’t think I was…” Master Reader Unger saw the expression on Klan’s face, lent a demonic air by the red light leaking from his eyes “…but I believe I have found something within the scrolls.”

“And?”

“It was among the Archipelago Scrolls, and they tell of the war between the old ones and the
rahken
s. It was partially burned, no doubt in the eruption of the Archivists’ Island twenty five years ago, but whole enough for me to discern that once, there was a great wizard, who, with the aid of the
rahken
s, defeated the old ones.”

Fernip Unger saw the look on Klan’s face clearly this time. It needed little illumination. So, the dead Protocrat thought, he does not know as much as he should. Wisely, he said nothing.

“And have your studies told you where this wizard went to after the sundering of the old world?”

“Just what you are aware of already. He lies, if the histories are to be believed – and you must understand that there is much within the tomes that is mere supposition – within an icy tomb far to the north of the western continent, which ancient Hierarch cartographers refer to as ‘Ascalain’. I am sure the people there have their own name for their continent. It is made up of three disparate nations, with few islands to speak of: there is a small country, where exiles from this land first fled, called Sturma through the ages, a vast wasteland further west, called Draymar by its residents, and a frozen wasteland far to the north, known as Teryithyr…”

“I know all this,” interrupted Klan.

“I am sure you do, but I am equally sure that you did not know of the existence of a dormant volcano far inside the Teryithyrian wastes, known as the Thaxamalan’s Crucible to ancient scribes, named for a mythical figure from Sturman lore. The volcano itself is frozen beneath a cover of ice, its sides worn thin with the motion of glaciers – ice has covered the land since the volcano fell to sleep. It is within this structure that rumour – and nothing more – states is the resting place of the wizard.”

“And where is this volcano?”

“No one knows. It is merely rumour, hints of a time when that land was lush and green. It has been so long that it is almost nothing but myth – I would have dismissed it, had there not been corroboration.”

“From whom?”

“From carvings I found on a pre-historic shield, made of a wood not native to our shores. The pictograms show a vast eruption, and crudely, the encroaching ice.”

“You give me much to think about. Perhaps I was not wrong to give you the gift of un-death.”

“There is more.”

“Tell me.”

“Ah, um…I don’t know how to put this…but It is rumoured that the wizard will awake come the return.”  Fernip Unger turned his gaze away from the Anamnesor. He realised, swiftly, that he had overstepped the mark. Some things he was not supposed to know.

“Well, thank you for your candour. I believe we are finished for the day. Just keep trying, Master Reader. I do so appreciate your assistance in this matter. You must excuse me. I have other matters to attend.”

“Your will master.”

As Klan turned, he added, “And may I say how well you are looking?”

Fernip gave him a l
ook only the dead can pull off, then
watched Klan’s receding back. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he had touched a nerve.

Dead or not, some knowledge should be kept to himself. He would have to be more circumspect in the future.

*

Chapter Thirteen

Eventually, he thought it would be a kindness to the Kuh’taenium. Not long now and she would be weak enough to die. Perhaps she deserved it. She had served humankind for so long. Empathy was not one of Sventhan’s strong suites, but he could imagine just how tired he would be if he had been born to think, and to remember, and had done so for a thousand years or more.

He was tired enough now, and he had only been thinking for a day. But while he knew he might not be a great thinker, he did understand the meaning of duty as few others.

Sventhan followed the Omerteran. He followed it in his every action, his every word. But he knew also what it did not preclude, what it allowed, and how far he could traverse within its iron-bound code. The Omerteran was a way of life, handed down from generation to generation. Over the years it had been spread far and wide, the family growing, but still always able to trace their roots back to the beginning when they had been builders. The knowledge was part of the code – a way to make a building live. There was no magic. It was geometry, in the lines, and the stone. The stone was rare now. There were no more quarries. But far from becoming forgotten, the knowledge of how to build was entrenched in a widening family of builders. There was no call for it any more, but it was the rules. It was never written – and no body outside of the family knew what they knew. It had survived for a thousand years, survived the exile of some of their members across the western ocean, and but two examples of their works remained, the rest lay in ruins, and a few forgotten, or taken over by beasts, converted to a lair, granting those beasts a measure of intelligence. One of the remaining buildings was in Beheth, its name forgotten, because the people who used it were too busy reading books they forgot to use the writing on the walls. The other was the Kuh’taenium.