Path of Revenge (2 page)

Less than two years ago she was sent down here, his answer, his sweet answer. Strongly gifted, she saw through his mask, found him lying on the floor of his cell. Pitied him.
Oh, angel!
He remembers the caress of the cloth she applied to the worst of his wounds, unimaginable balm in the midst of raging pain. He repaid her by driving a small spike of himself into her vulnerable young mind, and there he found her secret.

It was hidden in a sealed-off corner of her memory, too painful to examine until he rooted it out and lanced it with his magic. She was aware of the existence of a Stone, though she did not know what it was or what it could do. Husk knows what it can do. He needs it. With the Stone he can undo the magic of an immortal. With the Stone he can bring his enemy down.

Breathe out.

He lets the breath out slowly, lest excitement overwhelm good sense. His little spike is secure but he checks it just the same, seeing through her eyes, hearing through her ears, though she is many weeks’ journey from his prison, part of an expedition he arranged for her to join. They are using her again, but what is that to one such as he who has experienced the horror of being unmade?

Breathe in.

He reviews his plan. The Stone she will bring him is the key to everything. But it will not be sufficient
on its own. Just as well, then, that he has set two other opportunistic spikes. The first he drove into the self-deluded mind of a priest from the west, a foolish Falthan spy. The lies Husk taught him will certainly draw forth the Falthan queen, she with the Blood he so desperately needs. The second he set in the naïve mind of a young, brash captain, an explorer from Elamaq, the great southern empire. The temptation he placed there will bring north the Emperor to wield the Stone and take the Blood.

Breathe out.

Husk is in the perfect place to gnaw on his dreams of revenge. The master of this terrible prison can pick the very thoughts out of one’s mind, but down here, in the crawling depths of the Undying Man’s dungeon, everyone harbours such dreams. Their futile hungers mask Husk’s far more powerful desire. He disguises himself, cloaks his continued existence with the rotted hopelessness and petty anger of his cellmates. Here, only here, can he safely put together a plan to destroy his destroyer.

How to kill an immortal?

Using the Stone, the Blood and the Emperor, that is how. Husk will have them all in his hands very soon. And then revenge.

Breathe in. And savour.

THE NORTHERN SUN, TINGED WITH a tired orange at day’s end, ebbed slowly towards the dark seacliffs. Small white clouds scuttled out of her way like lambs fleeing a farmer’s dog. The air remained warm even as the sun weakened, unusual in early spring, especially under a clearing sky. A black-beaked gull hung for a moment against the darkening firmament, then wheeled and, with a cry, plunged into the eggshell-blue water in search of the day’s last catch.

Other fishermen wended their way home, their tasks done. Trousers rolled up to their knees, three men talked animatedly together as they walked barefooted across the warm sand. The nets had been full today, the work demanding enough to prevent the men sharing their gossip until now. Of course, such a plentiful catch meant a hard row home, then two hours of hauling nets to the fish market followed by tedious cleaning and repair work; but now, with the sun setting over their shoulders, their nets hung out and their boat beached, the fishermen forgot the stiffness in their backs and began to think about the excitement to come.

‘Warm wind tonight,’ one of them said, an older man with thinning hair and the beginnings of a paunch. ‘Good for the celebrations.’

‘Good for the dancing, you mean,’ said the young
man beside him, poking an elbow into his ribs. ‘You think the warm air will bring out the widow Nellas.’ All three men laughed.

‘Well it might, well it might,’ the older man agreed. ‘But I know who else it’ll bring out. All of young Mustar’s admirers, that’s who. Half the cliff-girls will stand there sighing at his magnificent body. None of the dandies who live on The Circle have bodies like that.’ He leaned over and wagged a finger in Mustar’s handsome face. ‘You keep your shirt on tonight, you hear, or I’ll crack your head.’

Mustar smiled. ‘Tonight I oil myself up and leave my shirt at home,’ he announced. ‘The cliff-girls can look all they want, but they can’t touch. I’m saving myself for the widow Nellas!’

‘You’re not!’ cried the old man, then reddened at their laughter.

‘No one will be able to dance,’ he said, trying to recover his poise. ‘Not once I take my shirt off. The cobbles will be covered in drool from all the panting tongues.’

‘Once the Recruiters get a sight of your flabby gut, Sautea, they’ll pack up and head straight for Neherius,’ Mustar said. ‘Maybe you’d better stay home tonight. I shall go up and suggest it to the Hegeoman.’ More laughter accompanied the absurd idea that a fisherman could be on speaking terms with the village leader.

‘You speak more wisdom than my son,’ the third man said to Mustar. His voice, though rich and good-natured, was unmistakably one of authority. The prudent man would step lightly around its owner, even when he indulged in gentle mockery, as he did now. ‘Are you sure you won’t be applying for recruitment?’

‘Noetos, you know me better than that. I’m far better off working for the Fisher of Fossa than risking my fate up north.’ Mustar frowned. ‘Not that there’s anything to risk. Arathé, now, she made the right choice.’

Noetos laughed and ruffled the young man’s hair. ‘I understand you, lad. Don’t think it hasn’t been hard for us with my girl in the service of Andratan. But it was all for the best.’ Unquestioningly for the best. He remembered how the boys of Fossa, Mustar at their head, had lusted after her. Arathé had done well to escape this village and the mean life it promised her.

A position in the service of Andratan. It was what most of them wanted, the young people growing up without prospects below the dark cliffs of Fossa. A chance to be tutored in the arts of magic, to live a useful, meaningful life. Noetos could understand their motivation. There was little for them here.

The three men negotiated the ruts and bumps of Beach Lane as they talked, and off to the west the orange sun touched the cliffs more in surrender than triumph. ‘Aye, another season like this one and I’ll be able to afford the down payment on a boat of my own,’ the youth continued, then stopped. Embarrassment spread over his features, as though he’d been shamed by speaking his dream aloud, and he rubbed his thin moustache nervously.

‘Will you now?’ Noetos growled, his brows lowering in mock anger. ‘A boat of your own! And what will I do for a spotter once you’ve gone?’

The young man looked around uneasily but found no support from Sautea, who hid behind a poker face. He turned back to Noetos.

‘Aaah, Mustar, you think I didn’t know about your plans?’ the big man boomed. ‘I’ve already put the word out amongst the other boats. I’ll have no problem finding a spotter when you move on. Maybe I’ll get one who can find some fish for me!’ he said, and clapped the youngster on the shoulder.

‘Four nets’ worth of spotting isn’t so bad,’ Mustar said. ‘I’ll do all right on my own. My Pa always said I should aim for my own boat.’

‘Halieutes would have said that, wouldn’t he? It’s not as simple as that, of course, not by a long cast. And now he’s no longer here to guide you, I suppose you’ll be coming to me for advice.’ The big man’s voice was mild.

‘Fishing advice, maybe,’ the handsome youth answered, a sly smile on his lips. ‘But not dancing advice. I’ve seen you dance. Have you ever seen a stranded whale flop about on a beach? Kindest thing I could say about your dancing. Perhaps I could trade you advice?’

‘I don’t need advice,’ Fisher Noetos said, smiling in turn. ‘Unlike you, lad, I am married, and so no longer need to dance.’ He spun around and pointed a finger at Sautea, whose mouth was open. ‘And don’t you say anything!’

The older man grinned. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, my friend,’ he said, merriment wrapped around the words. ‘You may not care to dance, but we Old Fossans would love to see you at the gathering tonight. No one cares that you are a cliff-man now. Will you come?’

A frown creased Noetos’s brow. ‘I doubt Opuntia will wish to go. She will want to remain home to prepare my son for the Recruiters. Sorry, Sautea. Pass on my regards to the widow Nellas, and if she chooses to dance with you, tell her to wear her heaviest boots.’ The jest was forced, but Sautea laughed regardless.

They reached the junction of Beach Lane and Short Run. Normally the three men would share the road up the gentle slope of Short Run, turn left onto Lamplight Lane, Fossa’s main road, then right into Old Fossa Road, where the fishermen lived with their families. Noetos would leave them there, as he had each day for the past two years, and climb the steep Zig Zag up the side of the cliff to The Circle, the road that wound its way around the cliff that enfolded Fossa, holding her close to the sea. Today, however, pleading a stiffness in his joints, he bade
them farewell at the bottom of Short Run and continued south along Beach Lane towards the place where The Circle descended towards the sea along a spur of rock. The two men, the old and the young, watched their master walk slowly away, rubbing his shoulder as he went.

‘I’ll always live in Old Fossa, just like Pa did, even when I’m rich enough to own four boats,’ the youth declared fervently.

‘Then don’t marry for beauty alone,’ his companion replied.

Noetos kept massaging his shoulder until he was sure his friends had vanished up Short Run, then relaxed and lengthened his stride. The deception was necessary, though he couldn’t identify the impulse that sent him the longer way home.
Am I so ashamed of my choice to live on the cliff that I will no longer walk through Old Fossa? Or is it my choice not to attend the celebrations tonight that sees me behaving like a cliff-man?

He looked inward, despising himself.
Never a cliff-man,
he vowed, as he always did, though he knew the vow was hollow. He lived on the cliff, right on The Circle in a place of honour, and had done since everything had changed two years ago this very night, the last time the Recruiters had come to Fossa. Opuntia had been beside herself with happiness when their daughter had been chosen.

Dusk settled around his shoulders like a cloak of guilt as Noetos reached the beginning of The Circle. He began the climb he had promised himself never to take—another vow broken—then turned and looked out angrily over Fossa and the small world that had smothered him every day of his adult life.

For a hundred leagues north and south of here the Fisher Coast was the same: a land of rolling hills and waving grasses, fertile and forest-sprinkled, ended abruptly to the east by a cliff plunging hundreds of paces
to the blue-green ocean. Here and there the waves had taken bites out of the land, and long ago fisher-folk had fashioned cliff-dwellings in these deep, protective embayments from which they could raid the sea. People had been living in places like Fossa for thousands of years, long before nations like Rhoudhos came into existence, long before the Undying Man welded those nations together into one mighty land called Bhrudwo.

Other fishing villages grew, became great ports, centres of trade and commerce, places of renown; but Fossa remained small, hedged in by tall cliffs, pinched against the ocean. Noetos looked up, his eye tracing the cliff-top arcing away ahead and to his right. He turned his head further to where the dark walls enclosed Fossa Harbour, separating it from the wider expanse of Alkuon Bay and the reefs on the edge of sight.
The cliffs,
he thought wearily,
the damn cliffs that dominate us all, shaping our very lives.

As always when prey to such moods his mind filled with images from his father’s stories. The wide plains and beautiful cities of Rhoudhos, lost forever. His grandfather burning at the stake, flames in his grey hair, stubbornly defying the Undying Man. The great decline following his death. Rhoudhos thrown to the Neherian wolves, who almost swallowed it whole, leaving Saros and Palestra to absorb the remnants. Fields fired, stately buildings torn down, books and artwork burned, bodies left in piles to rot. A time for savages.

Nothing but pain ever came of such reminiscence.

He was now high enough that he could look down into Old Fossa, a collection of huts and lean-tos, the place he had lived until two years ago. A few lights indicated that some still had not left for the celebrations. His gaze rested fondly on the roof of the small house he had purchased with the last of his father’s money. The house where he and Opuntia had brought up two children. He tried not to wish things had
remained the way they were. He tried to imagine things were better now with a child a thousand leagues to the north, a wife who cared only that she had finally climbed out of Old Fossa to her new house on the cliff, a boat named after the beautiful girl whom they had sent away, and a son who seemed determined to follow in her footsteps. He tried hard, but he had never possessed a good imagination.

The Circle finally brought him up to the first cliff-houses. Made of cliff-stones, individually selected and carefully mortared together, these houses were far more substantial than those in Old Fossa below. Up here on the cliff lived the rich farmers, merchants and members of the town council, including the Hegeoman who ruled them all. The cliff-folk grudgingly allowed space for one fisher-family to live on the heights, by agreement the most able (the wealthiest, in their eyes). The house Noetos now occupied had been lived in by fishermen for hundreds of years—until the time of Halieutes, Mustar’s renowned father.

Halieutes, the greatest Fisher Fossa had ever known. He who had taken his one-man boat out through The Rhoos and into the open sea that now belonged to the Neherian fleet, not once but many times. He stole the fish from under their long, pointed noses, becoming a legend to all in Fossa and the first fisherman in centuries to be a genuine cliff-hero.