Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (15 page)

Alaron stared at her.
Well, that’s rich, coming from you
 . . . It was also most of the things he’d have said if he had the courage to do so. He turned back to look at Puravai, dreading what he might see.

The old Master chuckled wryly. ‘Why, Mistress Lily, you’re what we call an Early Rationalist. It is a view we respect. But even you must agree that there is an eternal aspect to who and what we are. Your gnosis is based upon it:
the soul
. Even you magi cannot say what occurs when soul and body finally part. Antonin Meiros himself has agreed that the teachings of Zain are as rational and lucid as any religion.’

‘That’s a low hurdle,’ Corinea drawled.

Alaron’s heart went to his mouth at the jest, but Puravai only chuckled. The old Master leaned forward, licking his lips, and when Corinea mirrored the monk’s posture, Alaron realised that the argument had been effectively removed from his hands.

‘Er . . . I think that the danger we face is rather more tangible than philosophical,’ he pointed out.

Puravai was still looking at Corinea. ‘All matters are governed by philosophy. The decision to kill one ant or ten thousand men is the same moral choice.’

‘But the scale cannot be ignored,’ Corinea scoffed. ‘Otherwise we’d be hanging men for treading on beetles.’

‘The teachings of Zain are clear on this point,’ Puravai replied, and launched into a diatribe on ethics of the sort that Alaron had slumbered through many times at the Arcanum.

Alaron asked Ramita silently.

—
>

Ramita stood. ‘I’m tired,’ she said simply, as everyone turned to her. She bowed respectfully to Master Puravai. ‘I do hope you enjoy your talking, and please don’t overlook the fact that the life of my son hangs on the outcome of your debate, not just the fate of the world.’ She held out a hand to Alaron. ‘Will you show me the way back, bhaiya? I don’t remember all the turns.’

Leaving the room felt like ceding power, but the debate had already left them both behind. Alaron looked at Yash, who shrugged, and indicated that he would come too. Corinea lifted her chin with the faintest air of dismissal. He bit his lip, then bowed also. ‘I too will trust in your wisdom, Master Puravai.’

They walked in silence back to their quarters. He appreciated why Ramita had taken him out: anything he said would have sounded childish.
Better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt
, his father liked to say.

They wished Yash goodnight, then paused in the lounge. Alone.

‘What will be will be,’ Ramita said quietly.

‘I don’t trust her,’ Alaron said.

‘Nor I, but in this she wants the same as us.’ She squeezed his fingers in her small, tough hands. ‘I’ve finished weaning Dasra,’ she added, a little sadly.

‘You need to thank the Omali Goddess of Weaning,’ he replied cheekily. ‘I presume there is one?’

‘At least three.’ Ramita plucked at the rakhi-string on his wrist. ‘Thank you for standing by me, bhaiya. I don’t know if I could do this alone.’

‘I know I couldn’t,’ he replied, feeling his heart quicken.
Kore’s Blood, I need to kiss her . . .

She started to say something, but he didn’t want to hear it, in case it was ‘goodnight’. Two steps. That’s all it would take. Before he could talk himself out of it he moved, bent, and kissed her small mouth. For a moment she was frozen, and he was scared that he’d made an awful mistake, then she seized him, went up on tiptoes and mashed her lips to his. Her small but full body pressed against his lean chest, the thin cotton they wore the merest of barriers. His mouth never leaving hers, he lifted her and seated her on the table, tasting her spice and salt, breathing her breath, while his heart hammered and his skin felt as if it was catching alight.

How long the kiss went on he couldn’t tell, for he was living only from one slow moment to the next, his fingers stroking her neck and her bound-up hair, feeling the shape of her spine under the thin kameez, while his tongue tasted hers. He poured all his need for her, for her reassurance and comfort and affection and trust, into that kiss, even as he marvelled to be so close, to touch her skin, to breathe in her unique scents, to finally, openly, hold her as if he would never let her go.

‘Bhaiya,’ she whispered at last, ‘it isn’t good for brother and sister to be like this.’

He felt a sudden, crushing sense of loss.
She tied that rakhi string on me to prevent this very thing . . .
Was it even him she’d been kissing, in her mind, or someone else: her dead husband, perhaps, the mighty Antonin Meiros? Or the childhood sweetheart, Kazim? Who was he, a mere trader’s son, and a ferang at that, compared to such memories?

He tried to swallow his disappointment, whispering, ‘I’m sorry, I—’

She put a finger to his lips to silence him, then seized his right wrist and snapped the rakhi string.

‘Now,’ she whispered, ‘I think we were kissing, yes?’

*

The door opened, and then the shutters, while Ramita struggled to work out where she was, tangled in blissfully clean, fresh-smelling sheets, naked and alone. She blinked at the sudden sunlight carving up the shadows as a female voice coughed and said in an arch voice, ‘I’m rather surprised to find you on your own in here.’

Ramita pulled the sheets up and looked around, seeking the nightshirt she’d cast off in the night. Her blood had been pumping madly and she was too hot to sleep; she’d been tossing and turning for hours, too many thoughts galloping through her brain. ‘What time is it?’

‘Mid-morning,’ Corinea replied, adding with a sniff, ‘The young are so fragile. A little lost sleep and they can barely cope.’

Ramita forced herself to concentrate on the here and now. ‘You are finished talking already?’

‘It was an excellent debate,’ Corinea said with some relish. ‘It has been far too long since I’ve had the pleasure. I love a good argument. A shame it didn’t lead to another type of bout, but he’s taken one of those stupid chastity vows.’

Ramita pulled on her nightshirt, trying not to think about ancient monks and sorceresses lying together, though her heart was singing this morning and any kind of love felt like a good thing.

How she’d pulled herself away, she had no idea. She’d not had such an evening since she’d first fallen in love with Kazim on the rooftop of the family house, kissing passionately under the stars, and all the while dreading the sound of Father or Mother’s footsteps. Somehow she’d remained a virgin despite the temptation – she’d been too scared of the consequences of weakness, and of the shame succumbing to the man she adored would bring. But last night, holding Al’Rhon –
my cuddly Goat
– had been a true torment, because nowadays she knew
exactly
what she was missing. Desire had almost overwhelmed her as she recalled how good lovemaking could be – as it had been with her husband, despite the age difference.

She had kept her senses enough to remind herself that a dutiful Lakh girl does not lay with a man outside of wedlock
.
That, and only that, held her back from the consummation she so badly wanted.

Alaron had not pressed the point, and she’d liked that, too. Her bhaiya . . .
no, no, not brother, not any more!
 . . . had been a gentleman, in his foreign Rondian way. He’d kept his hands in seemly places and his private parts to himself, and that had felt right. The kiss had been enough, for now; there was no shame, nothing for either of them to be embarrassed of in the cold light of day – only a warm glow, and a longing to see him again.

Then she remembered why they’d been alone in the first place: others were deciding their fate – and the fate of her stolen son.

‘So?’ she asked Corinea in a hollow voice.

The old sorceress slowly smiled. ‘The choice will be made by each potential candidate in turn.’ She posed like a dancer taking applause. ‘You may thank me as you see fit.’

6

The Valley of Tombs

Hunting for Ghosts

There is an intriguing thought that underpins the gnosis – that if everybody has a soul, and that soul dwells for a time in the aether before passing on to another place – then every person who ever lived, lives still! In particular, the quest to find and commune with the soul of Corineus has consumed many a life, and goes on even today in some religious orders.

B
ROTHER
Z
EBASTIEN,
K
ORE SCHOLAR, 787

Valley of Tombs, Gatioch, on the continent of Antiopia

Shawwal (Octen) 929

16
^th
month of the Moontide

Stark shafts of light cut the valley into geometric patterns of sand and shadow as the westering sun painted the cratered face of the moon in pale pinks and sullen crimson. Malevorn Andevarion climbed to the crest of a giant edifice in the Valley of Tombs, a memorial to a dead empire spread out at his feet.

Even he, a native of Pallas, couldn’t help shivering in awe at the sight. He’d never thought to see anything to rival the famed Imperial Bastion in Pallas, but this place, even abandoned and falling into decay, took the breath away. Huriya, using Sabele’s stolen memories, had told him the history of Gatioch, a kingdom to rival Kesh before the coming of the Amteh faith. The Valley of Tombs was where their kings and queens, princes and princesses and lords of high state had been buried. The gigantic monuments housed deeply buried tombs, all richly adorned with the half-beast, half-man gods of the Gatti. Giant men with cobra heads, the details crumbling but still discernible, stood eternally on guard.

‘Most were plundered long ago,’ Huriya had told him. ‘But there are still tombs to be found, supposedly crammed with grave goods.’

The Souldrinker pack that haunted these wastelands was smaller than Huriya’s had been, but that still gave them an extra fifty much-needed fighters, mostly men of Gatioch, with tangled facial and body tattoos depicting the old gods. The Amteh might have thought they’d quashed the old religions, but such gods had only gone into hiding; they were still worshipped by many of the nomadic tribes of the deserts.

Distant movement drove the memories from his mind. Riders were filing into the valley a mile away.

Adamus has taken the bait . . .
He took a deep breath and kindled his wards, making sure there was nothing to show that he was anything other than alone. He hoped the arriving riders couldn’t sense that the tombs below were crawling with Dokken.

He was standing beside an old altar on a dais some fifty feet above an open space in the heart of the valley, between two huge statues of alligator-headed men. He loosed his scimitar and sent his senses questing outwards.

If I were in charge, I’d have men in the air above, hidden by Illusion . . .

Adamus Crozier had been deeply suspicious when Malevorn had finally managed to contact him, and reeling him in had been a delicate negotiation. He’d not at first been inclined to believe Malevorn’s story, that he’d managed to escape from the Souldrinker pack he’d been captured by and hadn’t been able to call for help until he’d created a relay-stave. It was only when he told Adamus that he had news of the Scytale that he’d managed to lure the clergyman here.

There were five riders approaching openly, riding khurnes, the new intelligent construct-beast: horned horses based on a mythic Lantric creature. His link to Huriya revealed four other Inquisitors on foot, two on either flank, creeping stealthily through the ruins. That left two unaccounted for, assuming Adamus had brought a full Fist of ten Inquisitors. It was months since Malevorn had been taken, and they might have suffered further losses, but he couldn’t afford to make such assumptions.
I know we’ve got the local Dokken onside now, but even with the whole pack, this could go badly wrong.
He straightened his back.
So I have to make sure it goes right.

Adamus Crozier’s voice shimmered into his head and he squinted into the dying light, identifying the crozier as the middle of the five approaching down the central aisle, riding bareheaded, his bushy curls framing an olive-skinned face. The rest were armoured, sporting tabards of black and white. They’d be on high alert, gnostic senses no doubt fully extended. It was obvious to even an amateur just what a trap this warren of stone was, perfect for hiding and ambushing, while the rock hindered scrying. But none of them would be less than a half-blood and they’d all been trained to exacting standards of sword and gnosis.

Hopefully, they think I’m alone . . .

he sent back. He glanced left and right, where he guessed other Inquisitors might be closing in, cloaked by Illusion.

Adamus paused and looked up at him from the middle of the square below. Some kind of signal pulsed and he glimpsed a shimmer amongst the shadows to his right. His throat went just that bit drier. He kept his eyes on Adamus, calculating when the blow would fall.

Stepping to the edge of the tomb, he waited as the crozier urged his khurne forward, trailed by Commandant Fronck Quintius, the commander of the Fist. Malevorn raised a hand to stop the clergyman some forty yards from the foot of the tomb – too much closer and the taint in his aura might be discernible.

‘Thank you for coming, Lord Crozier,’ he called, making the Imperial salute. ‘You have travelled a long way.’

‘But to an impressive place,’ Adamus replied. ‘Quite the wonder, is it not?’