Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (101 page)

‘Ramita is stronger even than an Ascendant. It took that to reach him.’

Elena swallowed tightly. ‘Then I’m grateful.’ Her eyes narrowed again. ‘You have the Scytale of Corineus?’ Elena’s flat tones didn’t quite convey the scepticism on her face.

He pulled it out and showed her. She stared, then slowly took it from him, turning it over in her hands. ‘And you’ve
used
it?’ He responded by conjuring his aura so that she could measure his strength and see just what his affinities were:
everything
. Her mouth dropped open. ‘What the Hel? Are you even Alaron any more? And you’re dressed as a Zain. Why?’

It took some telling, the hunt for the Scytale, and the trek from Yuros to Antiopia, how he’d met Ramita, the formation of the Merozain Brotherhood, all the people he’d found and lost. Master Puravai’s revolutionary gnostic training methods took a lot of explanation, and demonstration too, before she could take it all in.

‘And you’re married to the Lakh girl? Do Vann and Tesla know?’

He bit his lip. ‘Aunty Ella, I’m really sorry . . . Mum’s dead.’

Comforting his tough, quicksilver aunty was perhaps the most alien part of the whole evening.

They were still holding hands and trading reminiscences when a servant scurried up. ‘Lady Ramita asks you to attend on her and Lord Kazim immediately,’ he said breathlessly.

Elena looked put out to be interrupted, but Alaron knew Ramita didn’t summon him through servants frivolously. They hurried to the infirmary to find Kazim lying propped up in bed, and Ramita holding his hands. Alaron had to quell a moment of jealousy, recalling that these two had history that predated him, but Ramita’s face was all concern.

‘Al’Rhon, Alhana – Kazim has remembered something!’

They all looked at the young Keshi Souldrinker, who spoke in a dazed manner, as if he didn’t quite trust his recollection. ‘During the fight . . . the assassin linked minds with me, while trying to break my mental defences . . . I read something in his thoughts, a memory of a conversation . . .’ He grabbed Elena’s hands. ‘Alhana –
Gurvon Gyle . . . the emperor . . . they’re going to destroy the Leviathan Bridge!
’

40

Changing Loyalties

House Fasterius

The House of Fasterius married into the Sacrecour Dynasty in what was the culmination of a multi-generational campaign. It reached its fulfilment in Lucia, who risked spinsterhood in her unwavering focus on winning the prized hand of Emperor Magnus. Lucia had been regarded as a prodigy, someone who could advance our understanding of the gnosis in unknowable ways, but she abandoned study for court intrigues, and was lauded for doing so.

What hope is there for female emancipation when she is our shining example of womanhood?

J
USTINA
M
EIROS,
O
RDO
C
OSTRUO
C
OLLEGIATE,
H
EBUSALIM, 909

Midpoint, Leviathan Bridge, in the Pontic Sea

Akhira (Junesse) 930

24
^th
and final month of the Moontide

Gurvon Gyle had not tasted failure since the Noros Revolt, and even that defeat had not been this bitter.

I lost, in a game even Cera Nesti played better than I.
It was galling, and no matter how often he promised himself that he would exact revenge in time, the stink of defeat lingered.

Since escaping Jekuar and recovering his gold from Brochena, he’d been flying west, stopping where he’d laid his bolt-holes against potential disaster. He’d stayed in each for a week, enough to replenish supplies, pick up a few items and most of all, to think. This latest hidey-hole was a cave east of the Krak di Condotiori. It reeked of dead game, but it sufficed, for now, while he thought things through.

Only when he felt he was truly ready did he pick up a relay-stave and reach out. It was morning, and Veritia, who had escaped Jekuar and was now his eyes and ears in Pontus, said the Imperial Fleet was nearby. He kindled the gnosis and reached with his mind . . .

. . . Mater-Imperia Lucia looked as if she’d been interrupted while dressing. Her hair was down, and she had on no make-up. It made her look strange, unfocused and imperfect: matching him, in a way. Her eyes had a slightly alarmed, scared look, as if she too were unravelling.

he offered, not wanting to speak with her if she was angry.

She scowled, but her eyes were flickering nervously. She hunched towards him.

She didn’t smile.

He didn’t bother to deny any of that.

Her eyes narrowed.

He ignored that as the posturing of a trader.

Lucia didn’t break the connection, though. He could sense her mind calculating, indeed,
grasping
at this offer with more alacrity than he had anticipated. Veritia had advised that the empire’s monetary crisis ran deeper than he could imagine. He pressed on.

Her eyebrows shot up.
me
for your treachery?>

blame
, Holiness. I only emphasise the impact your words had on me. I soon learned that you were right: those bred to rule are far better equipped to the task! I should have known my place: as a servant of the ruler, with no higher ambitions than to serve well.>

<
Playing the obsequious courtier doesn’t suit you, Gyle.>
Lucia replied.

Even the fact that she was considering his words told him that she must be more than a little desperate. Veritia had told him that Kaltus Korion was missing or dead, and a deserter army was marching on Pontus, led by Korion’s bastard, with Dhassa falling into chaos as the legions retreated across the Bridge. The details were sketchy, but he guessed that Lucia was feeling incredibly insecure.

She came to a decision:

Two weeks later, his rehabilitation had apparently been accomplished. Of course he hadn’t given back all of his gold, and of course Lucia knew that, but they both pretended otherwise. She’d hidden his presence, but allowed him a secret audience, and to kiss her signet ring and swear allegiance to her – and her alone, he’d noted. She’d also given him a detachment of Volsai – although he only advised them, nominally, at least. No doubt their orders were to eliminate him at the first sign of betrayal, or maybe even as soon as his mission was complete. He was willing to take that risk, to be once again on the inside of the Sacrecours, the biggest gang in Yuros, with a mission that ranked higher in Lucia’s mind than all else . . .

Recovery of the empire’s gold from the remnants of the Second Army.

Now they were on windcraft south of Midpoint, tracking the deserters marching north across the bridge.

‘You are right, Magister Gyle,’ the woman beside him said, lowering her eyeglass. ‘The gold will be in the central wagons.’ Her name was Yrna Corloi, a Pallacian Volsai captain, and they were on the deck of a Rondian windcraft designed for two crew and six passengers. They had four more ‘Owls’ – warrior-magi of the Imperial Volsai – with them. Below, the column of deserters on the bridge were slogging towards Midpoint Tower. The Imperial Fleet was only days away, and the Keepers were readying the destruction of the Leviathan Bridge, just as planned.

His task was to recover the gold before they destroyed the span and sent all upon it into the sea. Corloi’s people had been watching the column for weeks.

‘They utilise all the wagons in the daily operation of the column,’ Yna Corloi went on, ‘but there are twenty that are always separate from the rest of the column and seldom entered, except by the same drivers. Which is exactly how one would treat an unmarked bullion caravan.’

Corloi had a businesslike manner Gyle liked; she was focused entirely on the result required and the most efficient way to deliver it. She was a comparative rarity as a woman in the circles she moved in, and displayed no hint of a softer side, from her cropped grey hair and lined face to her bony body. There was a touch of Elena to her, but he was utterly unmoved. He felt scarred from his brushes with woman of late.

‘Have the Keepers confirmed when they propose to begin their task?’ he asked.

‘Three days hence,’ Corloi replied in her flat voice. She knew exactly what was planned for the Bridge, and professed eagerness for the spectacle. ‘Magister Naxius himself has gone to Midpoint, to ensure that the solarus crystals have reached the correct levels of energy.’

Naxius? Is that snake still involved?
‘That doesn’t leave us a lot of time to seize the gold.’

‘The operation will take minutes if done well,’ Corloi replied. ‘We’ll have three warbirds and twenty magi. That will suffice. My people are the best in the empire – and we will have surprise on our side. I’m confident we’ll be successful.’

‘It would be desirable to take the bastard sons of Dubrayle and Korion alive,’ he suggested. He was rather fascinated by the notion that Dubrayle had a bastard; delivering the Treasurer’s head in a basket might be a way to a more secure future for himself. ‘There may be deeper levels to this that we’re unaware of, and obtaining a confession from one or both might have further advantages.’

‘That is a lesser priority than the gold, of course.’ Corloi sniffed. ‘But we’ll make the attempt.’

*

Ramon hadn’t intended to be awake at midnight, but he couldn’t sleep. He decided to try and walk himself into exhaustion, pacing back and forth, wrapped up against the chill. The weather had turned cold and clouds obscured the sky, sometimes sending flurries of rain and hail to sting their faces.

His worries focused on the following day, which would see them pass beneath Midpoint Tower. The scouts had reported a lot of aerial activity, but no one on the ground. He was increasingly convinced that the empire was going to try and stop them crossing the Bridge, even though their scrying showed no signs of other legions on the Bridge, or in Pontus.

He paused, leaned against the parapet and looked away to the north, where Midpoint Beacon was shining out over the tumult of waves and spray. The moon was reduced to a faintly gleaming disc above, its outline lost in a wash of silver. He wasn’t the only one awake: to the rear in the women’s caravan, the new mothers tended their newborns, and there were guards about.

Then lightning flashed, tinged with the raw power of gnostic energy, searing his retinas as it blasted apart the Argundian cohorts slumbering on either side of the bullion wagons. Even as this happened, dark shapes dropped into view above, raining arrows down into the camp, while others leaped from the windcraft onto the Bridge, blazing light as they came. For a moment his tired mind refused to take it in, but then instinct took over, not least because he’d been expecting something of the sort. He’d not intended to be so close when it happened, though.

‘
Wake up!
’ he shouted, drawing his sword as he ran forward, as more and more bolts flashed down, scattering the soldiers. ‘Get out!
Get out!
’ he yelled, as dark shapes dropped all around him; all of them were wrapped in gnostic shields, more magi than the entire Lost Legions could deploy. He had a split-second as they converged in which he wrenched open his belt-pouch and fished for the glass vial.

A mage-bolt slammed into his shields and staggered him and he heard a grunt, not of surprise but satisfaction. A grey-clad figure drifted on Air-gnosis towards him, sword raised and another bolt prepared.

he heard the man call.

He flipped the stopper and tipped the fluid into his mouth, swallowed as he shielded another bolt. The unpleasant tang filled his mouth. Then he was fighting for his life, blade to blade. His attacker was dauntingly skilled, each bolt designed to unhinge his shields and allow the blade to slide through at another point. Firing off mage-bolts in the midst of a sword-fight duel took skill and concentration, but his attacker managed easily. Then their blades locked and the other man twisted with practised power while a dagger appeared in his other hand. It gouged into Ramon’s shielding like a carving knife slowly slicing through meat, then Ramon caught the man’s dagger arm by the wrist and tried to wrench it away.