Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (73 page)

When they weren’t teaching, Alaron and Ramita worked on their own wider skills, concentrating on spiritualism, clairvoyance and divination, the Studies they’d need for their search, with Corinea as their guide. They started using their dreams to explore both the future and the present. With Corinea in attendance and wards carefully set, one would watch while the other began searching Ahmedhassa from the comfort of their sleeping pallet.

Nasatya’s name was on Ramita’s lips as she fell into the trance and invoked spirit-gnosis. She floated above her body and saw Corinea and Alaron watching over her: Alaron appeared oblivious to her otherworldly presence, but Corinea looked up, her eyes piercingly bright and focused, as if to say:
Yes, I see you
. Then Ramita whispered her son’s name, picturing his tiny face, and she
shimmered
and flashed outwards in a blur of darkness and light—

—and into Dasra’s nursery, the next storey up. She hissed in annoyance and quested outwards. The world blurred, then she cried out when she saw a child held by a woman in a tiny, smoky hut in the mountains. But it wasn’t Nasatya at all, and the woman cradling the boy wasn’t Huriya. The vision frayed and she flashed on to another and then another, until her conscious mind reminded her subconscious that it had been six months since Nas was torn from her hands and she found herself back in the nursery, gazing down at little Dasra, lying on his back, sleeping.

He opened his eyes . . . except he didn’t – but he saw her in his own dream and smiled, and she blinked back to her body, trembling as she woke.

‘You’re back already?’ Corinea enquired. ‘It’s only been twenty minutes!’

‘I was trying to find Nasatya but that led me back to Dasra in the nursery,’ she mumbled apologetically.

‘Then try again, and stay focused.’ Corinea clicked her fingers and a wave of tiredness rolled over Ramita, instantly carrying her back down into the dream-state.

*

Over the next few weeks, Ramita and Alaron grew progressively more tired. Sleep yielded no rest, for their dream-searches were draining them of gnosis – and their spiratus had a range of only a few hundred miles. Once they learned to use the eyes of other spirits – the Web of Souls – they could go further afield, although this too had its problems: the desert had few beings whose eyes they could borrow, while the cities had far too many – and on top of that, they could be more easily deflected by gnostic wards.

The search became increasingly distressing for Ramita as Nasatya remained unfound, and she began to doubt that she would ever find him.

The Valley of Tombs, Gatioch, on the continent of Antiopia

Safar (Febreux) to Awwal (Martrois) 930

20
^th
and 21
^st
months of the Moontide

It was somehow appropriate to awaken in a tomb.

I’ve come back from the dead.

Malevorn had no memory of how he’d come here – in fact, he had no memories at all after that sharp moment of painful awareness that his heart was stopping.

Six pairs of eyes gazed at him as he sat up on the stone slab. Something shifted on his chest and he clutched it to him: the necklace anchoring the possessing spirits of each Ablizian. Moving was horribly painful: his whole body was stiff, his joints were locked, and almost worst of all: he stank. He’d evidently soiled himself repeatedly.

But I’m still here . . .

A Necromantic scarab was one way to save yourself from death, but the arts of Wizardry provided another: you could house your spiratus in an artefact, preferably a gem like a periapt, instead. While a necromantic scarab dwelt in the skull; a spirit-gem remained separate from the body it protected. Rather than becoming a death-magic parasite, one becomes one’s own possessing daemon.

This was the preferred means of cheating death among Wizards, but it wasn’t as reliable as the Necromancer’s scarab – and it came with other limitations, chief of which was that the wearer was vulnerable to Wizardry himself. But that was still preferable to dying – and in Malavorn’s view, much better than being reduced to a Death Scarab. And right now he felt utterly vindicated: he’d survived the heart-link with Huriya being snapped – for the necklace of gems that contained the souls of the Ablizians had also contained his own.

Hessaz, you treacherous bitch . . .

As his awareness extended, he let his gnostic sight drift, reacquainting himself with the Valley of Tombs. Huriya’s dead, rotting body still hung from the manacles, but the Lokistani woman was gone and so was the Meiros boy. The Ablizians were still here, though there were far fewer – he probed deeper and found that in his absence, they’d been eating each other for want of other food, the weakest voluntarily baring their throats to the strongest.

He counted the gems on the necklace; as well as his own, there were just seventy-eight Ablizians left – he’d lost
hundred
s of them. Still, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. He looked at the nearest Ablizian, a male, who’d been regarding him with narrow, focused eyes. These creatures had kept him alive when he was utterly helpless, and that told him much about what he’d achieved: multiple possessed daemons devoted to him alone.

Then it spoke. ‘
Master, welcome.
’

He caught his breath as the six slaves went down on their knees.

‘A bath is prepared, and a meal awaits,’ the Ablizian said as he extended a hand to help Malevorn rise.

As he clasped the proffered hand, something utterly unexpected shocked through him, and changed
everything
.

*

Malevorn examined his diamond-studded spear: each stone, pulsing like hundreds of heartbeats and glowing with a peculiar inner light, was the anchor-spell for an Ascendant slave. He’d taken his necklace and fused it to a spearhead; the spear was much more warrior-like – and in this configuration, it had produced an interesting effect: it worked just like an unusually powerful periapt, which was something he’d not been able to use since becoming a Souldrinker.

But he had discovered there was an unexpected price, though he hadn’t at first noticed it: he hadn’t slept in the past month. He’d been working day and night, sustained by greedy use of the gnosis. His slaves had to remind him to eat and drink, for he had lost any cravings at all, except to hold the spear and commune with the inner landscape he’d found there – and his new Master. This was an endlessly fascinating world, far more interesting than the drabness around him. The Valley of Tombs was just ancient statuary, a reminder that all things failed in time. Only the spirit was eternal.

Like an addict reaching again for the mouthpiece of his hookah pipe, he clutched the spear tighter and plunged back into its eternal and ever-changing vista. Choosing a diamond at random, he threw his awareness into it, his senses separated into two. The core of him remained inside his own body while a shadow-self plunged through the gem and along the link to the daemon it anchored, an Ablizian presently stalking the perimeter of the Valley of Tombs. It flinched when it sensed his presence, but he caressed its sensory nodes to reassure it, then sent his awareness delving into its soul like a worm through layers of soil, pushing aside the detritus of memory and sensation until he burst through into an entirely different place: into the mind of Corineus Himself.

His Saviour became aware of him and turned his way, like a galaxy forming a visage from the stars. A massive voice sang inside his mind,

He fell to his knees as an image of his own body formed around him, a perfect version of himself, clad in silks that felt rich and soft. Gold rings adorned his fingers. He felt impossibly strong and alive, as he no longer did inside his own body.

his Saviour said, pulling him effortlessly to his feet.

Johan Corin was astonishing to behold: outwardly just a man, perhaps, but if you looked closer, you saw that His strong, gentle face held the wisdom of ages. His warm visage was framed by blond hair, and His brilliant blue eyes were both penetrating and joyous. When He was impassioned, His voice could crack like thunder and shatter the sky like eggshells, but when He spoke, Malevorn heard music and laughter, and most of all, an all-embracing love.

Today Corineus was robed like a simple peasant, a wanderer, a preacher in the wilds of Yuros, proclaiming His own godhood, and he, Malevorn, was His most fervent and loyal follower.

Until he found Corineus inside his Ablizians’ souls, Malevorn had not realised what a desperate state he’d fallen into. He was filled with fear and hatred, detesting himself for becoming a Souldrinker, a Reject of Kore. He had been cast out by the Inquisition, cast adrift among heathens, his moral compass lost.

Johan Corin had given back his pride, spoken the words he needed to hear:

The world made sense now. The magi were not the ordained of Kore; they were usurpers. Corineus had not been the Prophet of the Magi but of the Souldrinkers: the first of that kind. The First Ascension should have meant an Empire of Souldrinkers, given a whole world to feed upon – but that beautiful vision, of Lions shepherding the Lambs to the slaughter, had been snatched away by a single dagger-stroke.

Malevorn had wept for what should have been when Corineus revealed the truth, but his Saviour had pulled him erect and told him what could be done to bring about that world. He
understood
now.

As the first Souldrinker to die, Johan Corin’s soul had been cast into the aether, but when His Souldrinker brethren also began to die, He was there to greet them, to take them into Himself. Corineus was now a being comprised of thousands of dead souls: His Brethren, his legion. In the absence of real gods, He had become one. Already He had worshippers on both continents – and now Malevorn had brought Him more. Together they would restore Urte to what it should have been: His.

In their first mental communion He had clothed Malevorn in silk and gold, raised him up and fed him wines with tastes hitherto undreamed-of, liquors of a sweetness beyond description, and He had shown him the past and postulated the future. From a dream-like Lantric palace of columned marble lavishly embellished with gleaming gilt high on a mountain peak He showed Malevorn the world in incredible detail – the most perfect scrying imaginable – including the positions of the armies of Kaltus Korion and Salim of Kesh, laid out like pieces on a war-map, with so much detail he could pick out the faces of men and women walking through market-squares or tilling fields. Only the magi were hidden. It was incredible – and it was just one facet of Corineus’ power.

As a reward for the enslavement of so many minds to His, Corineus opened up the full range of the gnosis to Malevorn, allowing him to channel every affinity without having to learn it. He perfected his body and mind without exercise or study – it was all so easy now that he began to forget how hard his life had been before. He was ready to take on the world again.

Corineus was attuned to his mood.

He noted. They were seated on an illusory islet in a beautiful lake, a place that though wholly conjured in Corineus’s mind, seemed utterly real – and yet it obeyed His every whim. They were reclining on divans, eating grapes while observing the court of Salim of Kesh in the real world, and though Malevorn spoke not a word of Keshi, every word was clear and understood.

Corineus asked.

My wrath.
Malevorn tasted the words pleasurably.
He was to be the blade of Corineus’ conquest of Urte. ‘Wherever my Lord commands.’

Corineus waved a hand and the surface of the lake transformed into a map of Gatioch and eastern Kesh, detailed right down to the tiny buildings and herds of beasts. His command of the Web of Souls beggared that of mere magi. He pointed to a small Gatti town built around a fortress northwest of the Valley of Tombs.

Malevorn promised,

*

Malevorn floated high above the keep, surrounded by his Ablizian slaves. Vaqo, the Keshi desert town on the edge of Gatioch, was built around a dirty little lake. Tonight it slumbered, oblivious to the Judgement about to be cast upon it.

He still hadn’t slept since awakening from near-death, but he felt perfect. His dreams had grown as his favour with Corineus grew; he was no longer content just to restore his family name, and even titles like ‘emperor’ sounded a little pallid when one could be God of all Urte. Information kept on flooding his brain, gifted by Corineus, stoking his ambitions higher. But this would be his first great test: to control his Ablizians in battle.

He looked up to see all but three of his creatures hovering; those he’d left to guard the Valley of Tombs. The seventy-five Ablizians floating in the skies above the sleeping village had all altered to take the shapes of Kore’s angels – which were more or less identical to the apsaras of Ahmedhassan myth – to awe any who caught sight of them. They had huge wings and shone like fallen stars.