Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (13 page)

She smiled indulgently. ‘They’re mostly poisons – in the wrong quantities they’ll stop your heart. But there is also senaphium, which Baramitius called “jolt-root” because he said it could restart the heart if given in the right quantities.’

‘So the ambrosia kills and then revives you . . . and that’s how the gnosis is freed?’

‘The objective is not to kill but to
almost
kill, then pull the drinker back from the brink. The rest of the ingredients, the ones that are personalised, are designed to moderate the poisons and awaken those parts of the brain conducive to gnostic use. Without them, the potion is just a poison. With them, it almost always works.’

‘Then why did so many of those given the ambrosia the first time die or get twisted into Souldrinkers?’

‘Because these refinements came later – that first potion was just poison, senaphium and a couple of extra herbs – what Baramitius did that night was reckless, almost insane. But that was Baramitius.’

‘But how did you know that you would gain the gnosis?’ he asked curiously.

‘We didn’t! We had no idea – even Baramitius didn’t know: he thought he was transporting us
bodily
into Paradise! We thought we were all going to sprout wings and turn into angels! The gnosis was all an accident, a fluke. Yet afterwards, Baramitius swore he received “visions from Kore”!’ She sighed reflectively. ‘They were mad days. I lost everyone I cared about that night, and had to kill the love of my life to escape. If I could go back I’d knife Baramitius and burn his rukking research to ash.’

Alaron couldn’t imagine a life without his own gnosis – it hadn’t always been easy, being a quarter-blood mage, but he knew he really was blessed. ‘But you’re still willing to allow a new Ascendancy?’ Suddenly the idea of drinking a cup of mixed poisons brewed by this woman felt a lot more frightening.

She looked at him intently. ‘You know what I want: a platform to tell my side of the story. In the end, all we have is our reputation, and I want mine cleansed. So yes, I will help you. The gnosis has been unleashed on the world, Master Mercer, and there is nothing I can do to change that; we are now blessed and cursed to live with it. I promise you, I will brew the ambrosia honestly.’ Her mouth curled bitterly. ‘I only hope that your Zain monks are as angelic as you think they are, or they’ll be just as monstrous as the Pallas magi.’

‘They aren’t like that.’

‘Power will change them, Alaron Mercer. I’ll warrant that in a few years you won’t be able to tell your monks from any other mage who thinks himself semi-divine.’

That was another worry Alaron really didn’t need. ‘We don’t have any choice,’ he said firmly. ‘They’re the only ones we’ve notes for – unless you’d rather I just chose a random village and poisoned their well?’

‘No, Master Mercer, you’re playing the only game you can, given the state of the tabula board. And I’ve met worse people than Zains to gift the gnosis to.’

‘They’ve got to be better than whoever Malevorn and Huriya give the ambrosia to, right?’

‘Probably.’ She frowned at him. ‘Tell me more of this Huriya Makani . . . there’s something familiar about her . . . I distantly sensed her gnosis in Teshwallabad, and it had the same taste as an old Souldrinker, Sabele. I sometimes encountered that one’s touch when divining the future.’

The name Sabele meant nothing to Alaron. Then he noticed a small cluster of dark shapes emerging from the haze less than half a mile across the plains. He immediately scryed, and Ramita’s face appeared before his.

Her face looked strained, but she wagged her head in that characteristic Lakh way.

Minutes later he was greeting them in the flesh. Ram Sankar was a bony grey-haired man with a scrawny son leading two pack-mules bearing Ramita’s purchases – not just the ingredients, but new clothes for them all too. Alaron noticed the quizzical expression when he was introduced as ‘Al’Rhon, my rakhi-bhaiya’ – he couldn’t follow the rapid-fire conversation in Lakh that followed, but it was pretty clear the old man didn’t approve.

‘Did anyone notice you both?’ Alaron asked Yash quietly.

The young Zain shook his head, and Alaron knew the monk was streetwise enough to have spotted a tail. He relaxed just a little.

Corinea checked the supplies carefully, making sure they had precisely what was required – errors could be fatal, she warned them. In the end she declared herself satisfied, and the old trader had a final low conversation with Ramita before collecting his son and the mules and setting off back towards the city.

Alaron waited until the trader had gone before asking Ramita what had happened.

Tears ran down her face as she repeated Ram Sankar’s story of the horrific torture and murder of Vikash Nooradin and his family and friends by Huriya and her pack. ‘They were killed because of
me
,’ she concluded, her eyes bleeding tears.

‘No, Ramita,’ Alaron replied quietly. ‘They were murdered because Malevorn and Huriya are killers. You know that, and you can’t blame yourself.’ He’d been through this anguish when Malevorn’s Inquisitors destroyed a Rimoni camp he’d been sheltering in. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he added, ‘but it’s their deed, not yours.’

His words appeared to reach her. ‘Sivraman will grant us retribution,’ she murmured, then took Dasra from Yash. ‘I’ll hold him while you pack.’ Her voice was still a little unsteady. ‘I think we should go. Better we fly by night rather than risk witnesses.’

The
Seeker
wasn’t a big skiff and with passengers, gear and goods was heavily weighed down, but there was no help for it. Fortunately, all three magi could use Air-gnosis to keep the craft aloft.

As the windskiff rose into the skies, Ramita stared back toward her home city, tears once again running down her cheeks.

‘You’ll come back, one day,’ Alaron told her, but he wasn’t sure she heard him.

Mandira Khojana, Lokistan, on the continent of Antiopia

Shawwal (Octen) 929

16
^th
month of the Moontide

Corinea and Yash made the return journey to Mandira Khojana far easier; the old woman claimed to have crossed the desert many times, and she certainly knew the shape of the land. And Yash had walked into the mountains to find Mandira Khojana, and knew the landmarks to look for, invaluable knowledge as a week after crossing the Sithardha Desert they found themselves amongst the massive, maze-like peaks of Lokistan. Alaron recalled his first arrival at the monastery: a crash-landing that all but wrecked the
Seeker
; he wasn’t at all keen to repeat that experience.

The air became thin and frigid, and they shared the sky with massive vultures with ten-foot wingspans that preyed on the mountain goats and kine that nimbly roamed the slopes and sheer valleys below. The knife-edged peaks that constrained their route glistened with ice, forcing them to fly lower, and constantly tack, a wearying task in a badly overloaded vessel with little room to manoeuvre, inside or out.

They were all unwashed, itchy, cold and increasingly irritable. The young men were sharing the aft deck, with the two women at the fore. Alaron and Yash were used to each other, and though they complained half-jokingly about each other’s farting, they got along.

The women were far less amicable. Alaron found it fascinating to watch them, for both were interesting to him, for different reasons. He adored Ramita, of course, the whole diminutive, fierce, self-contained, capable and adaptable being that she was.
An ignorant Rondian mage might just see an uneducated peasant
, he admitted to himself,
but her practical knowledge and insight always amazes me . . . and as for her raw gnostic power . . .
Of course, she’d borne twins to not just a pure-blood but an Ascendant, which was unprecedented.
Even so
, he thought proudly,
her gnostic skill’s becoming more intuitive
. He grinned to himself as he thought,
She’s like a plum: dark and sweet on the outside, with a core that hammers couldn’t crack.

Corinea was another thing entirely.

As the days passed, the woman of legend slowly emerged. That Corinea had been a force of nature, a dancer, a singer. The Kore Church had her strutting about half-naked all the time, flowers tangled in her hair, fornicating with anyone who desired her, faithless, promiscuous and conniving. In the
Book of Kore
, she was Corineus’ blind spot. Now, watching her, hearing her stories and the gradual revelation of her character, Alaron began to think that whilst the Church might have embellished the stories for their own use, they had been rooted in truth: perhaps she wasn’t the demoness of legend, but it was clear she was far from a saint.

She complained bitterly of the cold and the cramped skiff. She bitched about Ramita’s cooking, Yash’s ignorance and Alaron’s piloting. She moaned about the smell of Dasra’s swaddling and Ramita’s breast milk. Even the even-tempered Yash looked harassed when she started a rant. All in all, Alaron was heartily sick of her by the time they reached inner Lokistan, living legend or not. How Ramita put up with her he didn’t know, because in the fore-deck she bore the brunt of it.

‘A group of emasculated eunuchs hiding from the real world,’ was how Corinea sneeringly dismissed Zain monks. It was their fourth night in the mountains after a trying day riding the fast-shifting winds through the rugged peaks.

‘I don’t think you know anything about it,’ Alaron retorted, tired past caring about manners. At least Yash was away looking for firewood; he might have felt the need to leap to the defence of his order otherwise. Ramita was preparing to cook and he’d been lashing down the sails for the night while, as usual, Corinea waited like a princess for them to set up the camp, doing nothing herself. ‘I’m Arcanum-trained and they can whack the Hel out of me,’ he added.

‘You?’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘You’re slow, skinny and soft. You’d not last five minutes in a real fight.’

‘I’ve fought Inquisitors and Souldrinkers, and I’m still here. You’ve not even been in an Arcanum. So shut your ignorant mouth,
your Highness
.’

‘Oh, temper!’

You bet. The Anborn line is famous for it
. ‘Perhaps you could be useful for once and prepare the meal?’ he suggested with
that much
sarcasm.

‘Each to what they’re best at, dearie. I’ll do the thinking and leave the labouring to those born to it.’

Alaron picked up a pail and stalked toward her. ‘Why don’t you fetch the water? It’s time you did something, you lazy old biddy.’

‘I don’t think so, shop-boy,’ She scoffed, but her eyes had gone flinty.

He refused to be intimidated.
She’s not a demoness from the
Book of Kore
. She’s just an old strumpet with an attitude problem.

And Ascendant-level gnosis
.

He thrust the pail and a bag of food into her lap. ‘Stop being a bitch and do your share for once.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or the deal’s off.’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘Listen,
Lillea Sorades
. You’ve given us what we need from you, so thanks and all that. I can make the ambrosia now – maybe not as well as without you, but we’ll manage. So what exactly do we need you for, anyway?’

She blinked, and her voice dropped to a reptilian dry rasp. ‘Boy, you forget yourself.’ Behind that voice came the perception of her gnosis, a reservoir of power deep and wide, dwarfing his tiny pool.
Ascendant gnosis.

If I back down now I’m nothing in her eyes . . .

‘No. I remember who you are: some arrogant, preening witch in a book. The Kore are going to love you: you’re going to justify every preconception they’ve got. If you want to stand in front of the world and convince them you’re something other than an entitled bitch, why don’t you stop behaving like one?’

Her eyes went round, her lips pulled back from her teeth and for an instant he really thought that the next moment would see him buried by some bone-crushing spell. He was peripherally aware that Ramita was on her feet, but this was his fight.

She’s primarily Air and Sorcery. The opposite is Earth-gnosis . . . and she’s sitting on a rock . . .
He prepared a spell, wondering if it was the last thing he’d ever do.

Corinea let out her breath in a low hiss. ‘I haven’t cooked for decades, boy.’

‘Then it’s time you got some practise.’ He deliberately turned his back and walked away, trying to slow his heartbeat to something less than a gallop.

To his faint surprise, she did what he said, all of it, with far more skill than she’d led them to believe she had. For once she stilled her litany of whining, and as they all went to sleep, he wrapped himself in his blanket with a sense of satisfaction. They all stayed close to the fire, their breath frosting in the night air. Mater Luna was edging toward her full face and shone silver and bright in the darkness.

Sometime in the night, a little bundle of womanhood wriggled against him. Ramita laid her head on his chest, holding Dasra between them, sharing her blanket and heat. ‘You did right,’ she whispered, making him glow.

He inhaled the soft, oily fragrance of her thick black hair. He liked her smells, all spicy and earthy. He murmured and fell asleep again, warmer already.

As distances that would have taken weeks to traverse on foot melted beneath them in hours, Alaron reflected that flying was in some ways the most incredible magic of all the gnostic feats.
We travel like gods
, he reflected, then reflected that gods probably travelled far more comfortably on their winged steeds and chariots and the like.
Lucky sods
.

‘We’re here!’ Yash cried aloud, mid-afternoon on their sixth day in the mountains, as a distinctive green slope dotted with red poppies came into view, followed by the buttress of sheer stone, hewn into lines and planes: Mandira Khojana, huge, sprawling – and almost inaccessible. It was wholly manmade too, without any Earth-gnosis.