He walked out of the shadow and into the light.
Chapter Forty-Two
859th cycle of God, 41st day of
Genasrise
'Anyone so much as touches a weapon, burn them, Mirron.' 'It would be my pleasure.'
Gatherers and Ascendancy guards were sprinting down the corridor towards them. Paul Jhered marched deeper into the room. His gladius was out. He grabbed the nearest soldier by the throat and held his sword at eye level.
'Want to threaten me? Drop your damn weapon.'
The blade clattered on the ground. Jhered moved on.
'You? Or you?'
He paced in front of them, his presence utterly overwhelming. He seemed even taller than before, bigger somehow. His face held that dreadful calm of the man entirely prepared to back up his words with action.
'Any of you want to take me on? Didn't think so. Drop them. All of them.'
Weapons clattered down on the marble. Jhered turned from them. Arducius wasn't sure if they were more scared of him or of Mirron who stood naked and glaring at them through the flames that covered her. She looked so powerful, so beautiful. Gatherer cloaks swarmed into the room. When every weapon was down, she let the Work drop. An Ascendancy guard covered her with a cloak.
Arducius watched Jhered pace into the centre of the Chancellery. He took in everything. Andreas and Meera, who were hugging each other. Ossacer, who was coughing as if his lungs would explode. The bodies of Ikedemus, Cygalius and Bryn. The terrified eleventh-stranders, just two of them now, standing in expanding puddles and stained togas.
And lastly at Felice Koroyan.
Jhered towered over her, his eyes piercing her, reaching the darkest recesses of her being. His stare was unwavering and he held it until it was Felice who flinched and looked away.
'What have you done, Felice?' he whispered,
‘I
see it but I don't believe it.'
'These people are convicted heretics—' began a soldier. Jhered turned and pointed his sword. 'Shut. Up.'
‘I
am carrying out sentence,' said Koroyan.
Jhered sighed. He sheathed his gladius, it was clean and free of blood, took off a glove and dug in the corners of his eyes with thumb and forefinger.
'Didn't remember I was due back, did you? If the weather had been with us, I'd have been in port a day ago.' He was standing so close to Koroyan she could go nowhere, backed as she was against a recliner. 'Perhaps the Omniscient delayed me so I could witness this
...
whatever it is. Murder? Treachery? This is no sentence for heresy I am aware of.'
'There was a trial yesterday,' said Koroyan, finding a little courage. 'The Ascendants and the whole Academy were found guilty of heresy and sentenced accordingly.'
'Really? You manufactured a trial, too? I must discuss the proceedings with Senator Aurelius. Perhaps he can explain to me why sentence involves slaughtering children in the Chancellery.'
‘I
think you might find that difficult,' said Arducius. He realised his heart was still thundering in his chest. His focus had narrowed right down and all he could really see were Jhered and Koroyan now.
‘I
think she visited him before she came here.'
'Sit down, Ardu,' said Jhered gently. 'Before you fall. It's all right, I know what happened to Aurelius. I'm just sorry I couldn't save everyone. What about the others?'
'Safe,' said Arducius.
He sat on the recliner. Jhered's invitation had broken the line keeping him upright. He felt so tired. Ossacer was wheezing next to him. He looked as white as Arducius felt.
'Good.' Jhered turned back to the Chancellor,
‘I
don't want to speak to you any further tonight. The list of charges that will be raised against you is going to be the work of several days, Felice, or so it seems to me.'
'Bring them to me at the Principal House. I look forward to them.'
'You have got to be joking. You are not going anywhere. You and every member of the Armour of God inside the walls of the complex is under arrest and will be held in the cells. All of you on charges of murder.'
'You can't arrest me, I am the Chancellor of the Order of Omniscience. You have no authority here.' Koroyan drew herself up, chin pointing, arrogance returned.
'Want to bet? I know who you are but you have forgotten who I am. Head of palace security. Want to see my badge of office?' Jhered leaned in, their noses all but touched.
'You were retained as the Exchequer.'
'I'm doubling up as a favour to the Advocate. Take them. And Felice. Not another word.'
Arducius watched palace guardsmen enter and take the Armour of God soldiers and the Chancellor away. Heads were bowed and not one of them raised objection. The ring of their shoes faded away. Mirron ran into the room and hugged both Ossacer and Arducius. The three of them clung to each other.
'I thought you were all gone for sure,' said Mirron.
'Touch and go,' said Ossacer.
'Lucky Felice likes the sound of her own voice,' said Arducius.
'And the feel of a knife in her hand,' said Jhered.
The three Ascendants broke their embrace. Jhered was standing over Cygalius. Two Ascendancy guards had lifted Bryn's body from him. His toga was red and soaking. Not a hint of white.
'You weren't talking, were you?' Jhered walked over to Ikedemus. He knelt and gave his throat a cursory press. 'Think it was the right decision?' He nodded and guards stooped to pick up the body and take it out of the Chancellery and away to the medics and morgue. 'Well?'
'We had to buy as much time as we could,' said Arducius. 'She was going to kill us all anyway. Any chance that others could escape we had to take.'
'What will happen to her?' asked Mirron.
Jhered shrugged. He was flat, emotionless. Drained. Arducius knew how he felt.
'I don't know, I really don't. I'd like to tell you that she'd be tried along with her thugs, found guilty and executed. The Omniscient knows there is evidence enough to convict a hundred Chancellors. But she is who she is. And out in the city, there is no doubt she holds sway. We had to break through organised demonstrations and near-riots. Couldn't get any sense out of anyone. When you get yourselves together I need to know exactly what's been going on. All I can guarantee you right now is that we cannot afford this. Not with what we've seen and heard.'
Arducius looked round at Mirron. Her face had taken on a haunted look like she'd just woken from a particularly bleak nightmare.
'You didn't find Kessian, did you?'
Mirron couldn't answer him. Tears spilled down her face and she crumpled back into his arms.
'We found him all right,' said Jhered. 'And that bastard Gorian. But there was nothing we could do to stop him.'
'Stop what?' asked Ossacer. 'It's true, isn't it? The walking dead.'
'He's building armies out there,' said Jhered and shivered at the memory. 'He's able to manage forces over great distances. He can make dead soldiers fight for him. Gestern is already gone. Unless the Ocetanas can stop them, they'll sail here and take Estorr too. The whole mainland, if they want. I don't know how to stop him. God-surround-me, we don't even know where he is.'
'We've got a few ideas for seek-and-destroy,' said Arducius. 'Felice may not believe it but we've had no choice. And some explosive powder has come from Sirrane. It's powerful stuff.'
'Really?' Jhered brightened. 'Being able to blow them up from a distance would be a mighty weapon.'
'Orin D'Allinnius is fine-tuning it and he's started manufacturing, I think,' said Arducius. 'And we—'
But Jhered had stopped listening. He shot to his feet and ran from the Chancellery, shouting men to him, shouting others to guard the Ascendants.
'What's got into him?' asked Arducius.
'I hope it's not what I think it is,' said Ossacer quietly.
At least she hadn't left him alive this time. There had been an end to the suffering. Eventually. Jhered was almost pleased. He stood at the door to the workshops, unwilling to step inside for a while. He was cold with rage. This was worse than looking around the Academy. There he had seen things he could at least comprehend. Religious outrage made flesh.
Here it was brutal revenge that had been a decade in the making. And it hadn't been quick. Orin D'Allinnius, the most brilliant scientific mind in the Conquord, had been strung up between two roof beams in the centre of his office. He had been beaten, his head a mass of bruising and blood, his lower jaw smashed across his face such that every cry of pain would have brought fresh agony. He had been partially burned and disembowelled. Great threads of intestines hung from his body and spread across the ground under his feet inside a pool of drying blood.
Orin's face was slack, his eyes mercifully closed. Jhered wondered why Koroyan hadn't gone the whole way and reduced him to ashes. His cycle would continue. The Chancellor's should not.
Jhered swallowed hard against the sight and smell. He walked across the floor and drew his gladius. He cut at a rope. Orin's body swung down to the left and smeared across the floor with a sick thud and swish. He hung by the other rope, spinning slowly.
'Sorry, Orin,' whispered Jhered. 'Sorry I wasn't here to save you.'
Jhered cut the second rope and tried to cushion Orin's final fall. He laid his head gently on the blood-slicked stone flags. A noise at the door made him look up.
'Marcus,' said Jhered. 'God-surround-me but it's good to see you at least have escaped this. What are you doing in Estorr? I thought you to be in Sirrane.'
Gesteris walked into the room, single eye burning as it stared at D'Allinnius's mutilated body.
'Roberto sent me back with information,' he said gesturing vaguely. 'I've been here for some time. I was meeting with Elise Kastenas for much of the night. Just got a message that there had been trouble in the palace. Who
...?'
But Gesteris knew who. He ran to one laboratory after another, throwing open the doors and looking in. Furnaces were still alight but there was no other sound. When he returned, his face was pale and grey.
'She's killed them all,' he said.
'They were manufacturing a powder.' Jhered stood up and stepped out of the blood and over intestines to get close to Gesteris. 'An explosive. We need it.'
Gesteris nodded,
‘I
brought the materials back from Sirrane. They obviously thought we'd need it. All the powder we can find is all that we'll have. This was the dedicated team. They were working day and night. We might find a couple who were off duty but Orin hadn't even started formalising the procedure. Nothing will be written down.'
Jhered put a hand to his mouth. 'She might have killed us all.'
'What do you mean? Paul?'
Jhered couldn't answer him for a moment. Visions cluttered his mind. Of him doing to Koroyan what she had done to poor Orin. Of legions of the dead marching through the Victory Gates. Gorian sitting on the throne. He felt a hand on his arm and came back to himself.
'You've been out there, Paul. What have you seen?'
'Everything is true. Gorian, the dead, the Tsardon. God-embrace-me, Marcus, but the things I have seen.' Jhered shivered. 'Anyone killed, Gorian raises to fight again. They have no fear or will. They don't suffer pain. We couldn't stand against them. Gestern is already lost. They don't even have beacons alight. The dead are coming here and no one even knows it yet.'
'Walk with me,' said Gesteris. 'Let's get out of here, let the medics clear up. Elise came with me. She's at the Academy.'
Jhered nodded and the two men left the workshops, heading back towards the Academy buildings. Jhered felt numb now. The rage had left him and something else had settled on him instead. It was unfamiliar and
it
muddled his thoughts. Gesteris put it into words for him.
'There's shock on you,' he said. 'All that you've seen
...
It's one thing to deal with it at the time, quite another to relate it, bring it back to the front of your mind. Stick to simple facts. How many are coming through Gestern?'
Jhered stifled a laugh. 'That's the problem. I don't know. We saw thousands in Kark. But by the time they reach the western coast of Gestern how many might have fallen to decay and how many might have been added to the ranks is impossible to tell. Gorian has used plague as well as blades to get his army. And the Tsardon are backing him. If they can make passage to out eastern shoreline, I'm not sure we can stop them.'