The Fall of Ossard (20 page)

I blacked out for a moment, but then came to. Ignoring the pain, I tried to get back on my feet, only to realise that it was already too late.

A dozen cultists stood at the far end of the balcony with knives held to the throats of Lord and Lady Liberigo, and Pedro and Maria. Dark vortexes swirled about them, ready for their escape.

Pedro looked to me with fear in his eyes, and with my celestial vision I saw the colours of life drain out from him. I could see his fate; a pale, stiff, and cold body lying butchered and cursed, with his soul eaten by ritual magic.

Their leader strode past to join them. “We don’t just want children, now we need whole bloodlines.”

I cried out.

Inquisitor Anton stood behind me still chanting his prayer.

The cultist leader laughed and then ushered his people through their vortexes. I got up and leapt after them, but only succeeded in grazing myself on the balcony’s paving.

They were gone.

Sef cursed as he finally got through the doors.

The Inquisitor finished his prayer, one I now recognised as the litany for the dead. He’d never intended to stop them.

On my knees, I threw back my head and wailed. My heartfelt cry fell into the long and deep notes of Schoperde’s song of sorrow.

Anton cursed my heresy before kicking me in the back of the head.

The darkness that followed was a mercy.

Part II

Ossard, The Pious Empire

9

Sorrow

I awoke in my parents’ home, nestled amidst the linen of my childhood, and in the familiar surroundings of my old room. My mother sat beside me mopping my brow with a cloth, while whispering for me to be still.

For the briefest of moments I lay calm and blank, until the agony of my daughter’s goodbye ruined me afresh.

She was gone!

That misery was then doubled by my memory of Pedro having a knife held to his throat as he too was taken. I cried out, “My family!” and struggled to rise, but my mother’s hands held me down.

“Hush, you can’t do anything for them now.”

I gave up my failing efforts. “What happened?” And behind her I could see Sef standing at the doorway with downcast eyes.

“In the absence of Lord Liberigo, Benefice Vassini has claimed rule of the city. There’ll be a proclamation tomorrow at noon.”

No wonder the Inquisitor had done nothing; the kidnapping of the Liberigos had delivered control of Ossard to the Church.

“What kind of proclamation?”

“Your father says that the Benefice and Inquisitor have claimed governance, and that the Council of Princes is to be disbanded.”

“What about the other council members?”

“They’ve all been taken.”

I was stunned.

She went on, “And Pedro’s brothers are too far away.” His three older siblings acted as ambassadors in distant Porto Baimio, Lixus, and Vangre.

“Sweet Schoperde!” I whispered.

“Oh Juvela, there’s such misery in the streets!”

I struggled to sit up, and this time she didn’t stop me.

My mother took a deep breath. “There was a new round of kidnappings. So many have been taken that they’ve stopped ringing the Cathedral’s bells. People say that well over a hundred are missing, including all of the council, and five of their family lines.” And then tears overwhelmed her composure. “The city is ungovernable.”

“Pedro and Maria?” I asked.

She just shook her head.

They were gone, my husband and daughter
-
gone!

My own tears came and their issuing hurt, them running hard and hot.

Some witch I was, something I’d still probably die for, yet all I could do was sob.

I’d grazed my hands and knees back on the balcony. My once smooth skin now swelled black and blue, and spread with rugged scabs, but the real hurt lay underneath. My heart wasn’t just bruised, it lay smashed and ruined - trampled by an army of cultists and then worked over by the Inquisition.

It seemed that the Church had got everything it wanted; control over the city, a free hand to deal with the cultists however it saw fit, and then perhaps me. Would Anton still allow me to go into exile? I doubted it. I couldn’t in any case, not until I knew I’d done all I could to save my family.

My family…

That night, standing at my old bedroom window, I looked out across the rooftops and watched the distant warehouse of the ritual burn. The flames leapt high in flashes of orange, blue, and yellow, fed by oil and wood. They consumed the building and my memories of a city forever changed. The Ossard I’d grown up in, the free and easygoing place where anything could be bought or sold, the city known as
The Whore
, was gone - and I dreaded what might replace it.

Taking in that sea of countless rooftops only dragged me further into despair.

Where could they be?

Even the most thorough search would have trouble finding them, it complicated by a tradition of giving buildings hidden cellars and exits long ago used to avoid raiding pirates and tax collectors. And if the orderly districts of the city would be difficult to search, then the slums would be all but impossible. The filthy warrens of tightly packed buildings and twisting alleys dominated the city, including most of Newbank, the opposite riverbank, along the city walls, and around the port.

It seemed hopeless.

For a real chance of finding them I needed help. Quite frankly, I needed a miracle.

A knock sounded at the door. I turned to see my mother enter and Sef’s shadow haunt the corridor behind her - as always he watched over me.

She said, “Your father’s at the Guild, they’re talking of organising searches. Don’t worry, they’ll find them.”

I nodded, but wasn’t much cheered.

She carried something behind her back, something heavy that strained her arms. “I have something for you.”

I finally smiled and went to her.

She held before me an old book, something thick and dusty. It was no ledger, no family tree, nothing at all like that. Within me, for the first time since Maria and Pedro’s disappearance, the voices again whispered.

Mother said, “It was your grandmother’s.” She shook her head trying to fight off tears before pushing on, “I don’t know what it is, but she used it. I think it gave her power.”

The strongest voice in my head whispered, “The Book of Truth!”

And I was sure it was her; my grandmother.

I reached for the tome amidst a rising babble of head-bound voices and could feel the power within me begin to stir. My fingers touched it and the voices gasped.

Hope was here, hope, hope to see Pedro and Maria returned!

I took it from my mother’s trembling hands.

My sense of awe faltered, and then crumbled, giving way to despair. “Mother, I can’t read!”

She guided me, forcing me to turn and put the book down on the bed. With a smile, she said, “Neither could your grandmother.”

“What?”

She indicated the closed tome. “Just try it.”

I opened its stiff leather cover, stained where so many hands had held it, to reveal brittle pages yellowed with age. They spread before me covered in lines of dense script marked by slashing and generous strokes. It was beautiful. Before I knew it, I found myself running my fingertips along them, and with that the voices in me spoke, “…their only choice, for the Goddess of Life existed in a time of only one other god, Death, and between them, together and in union, they forged a mortal world…”

Stunned, I lifted my fingers from the page. The action brought silence. I turned to my mother and said, “I think I know it!”

My mother embraced me. “You should rest. Your father will do what he can with the Guild, and perhaps tomorrow we’ll see what
you
can do.”

I nodded.

She broke her grip and step by step backed away. She remained scared of the magic, the Church had done that to her, but she knew there was more to it than the priests’ dark dogma of fear. When she reached the door, she said, “I’ll bring up a lamp in case you wish to read.”

I smiled. “I’d like that. Thanks, Mother, you’ve given me hope.”

10

The Book of Truth

In the bedroom of my childhood, by the light of a lone lamp, I let the voices read to me led by the strongest, Vilma, my haunting grandmother. She was there to help, to see me through this
awakening
, and to see me become more than I was. I felt her presence, and almost glimpsed her, as if she was woven of drifting smoke.

Never did we speak to each other, but read on she did. I listened to her whispering voice as my fingers slid along the tome’s lines of slashing script. She didn’t tire or miss a word, she just continued on, through the night’s long darkness until the flames feasting on the warehouse faded, and up until the coming of dawn.

It was only a start, and we both knew it, but it left me forever changed.

Afterwards, it was hard to describe how I felt.

I sat by the window lost in thought as the sun rose to wash over me with its golden rays.