Veiled Empire (4 page)

Voren gestured at the blade. “Planning on putting your old skills to use?”

Draevenus’s eyes flashed. The dagger vanished up a sleeve. “No.” Then, on the very threshold of hearing, he added, “Not if I can help it.”

“I see. Of course, I have found that, in many situations, such choices are often beyond our control.”

“Control. That word . . .” Draevenus shivered. “It can break the world . . . Bring the heavens crashing down . . .
Burn
the very heart out of you . . .”

Gods above and below! What could you
possibly
be heading into?
Whatever it entailed, Voren did not envy Draevenus his journey. His own status as a prisoner of modest privilege seemed, at the moment, a paltry burden.

Voren reached for the glasses and wine bottle. “Here Draevenus, one more drink before you go?” It was, on short notice, the only distraction he could think of.

“No time now. I am sorry.” Draevenus turned to leave.

Voren, unthinking, held out a hand, as if to grab ahold of his companion.
Companion?
The idea that a mierothi—
any
mierothi—could claim this title in his mind drove the very breath from his lungs. In that moment, Voren realized that in nineteen hundred years of imprisonment he had not encountered a single other soul whom he would consider a friend. The thought of Draevenus’s leaving began tearing a hole in Voren’s long-held defenses.

“Draevenus?” he called tentatively.

The mierothi swung back halfway, raising an inquisitive brow.

Voren swallowed before continuing. “Be well on your travels, my . . . friend.”

Draevenus nodded. “Keep your head down, Voren. If I don’t make it back, before this is all over . . .” He trailed off, as if he had caught himself about to reveal some dire secret. But no—he was staring at something ahead of him. Voren stepped to the side in order to see what held his attention.

Emperor Rekaj stood in the doorway.

“Draevenus,” the emperor said, his voice like stones raked across a woven basket. “I thought I made it clear that you were no longer welcome here.”

“I’m leaving right now, Rekaj,” Draevenus replied.

Voren, in silence, examined the two mierothi males as they regarded each other. Rekaj stood a hand taller than the younger Draevenus, though still twice that short of Voren’s height, and possessed a face with none of the younger mierothi’s smoothness. Draevenus quivered, ever so slightly, like a pressed coil waiting to release. A hunter crouched for the killing leap. Rekaj, too, seemed to notice this stance. With one hand stroking the long dagger at his belt, the emperor laughed.

“Best get to it then, boy.” Rekaj stepped aside, waving towards the open door behind him.

Draevenus sighed. “Until next time, Voren.” With that, he strode from the room, slamming it shut behind him.

Leaving Voren alone with the emperor.

“Most honored one.” Voren bowed at the waist until his torso was parallel with the ground, hoping the brush of mockery in his tone went unnoticed.

“Why was Draevenus here?” asked Rekaj. “What business did he have with you?”

Voren frowned. “He . . . merely wished to say good-bye.”

“Good-bye?”

“Yes.”

The emperor furrowed his brow at this but waved a dismissive hand. “No matter.”

A knuckle rapped on the door, and one of Voren’s daeloth minders poked his head in. “Emperor,” he said, “I have word from—”

“Stuff your message!” Rekaj said. “And you tell the council that
they
await
my
pleasure, not the other way around!”

Eyes wide, the daeloth jerked a nod and departed.

Gods, please, do not lose your temper.
Voren shuddered, remembering the last time he had witnessed the emperor’s wrath unleashed. Thankfully, it had not been aimed at him. This time, however . . .

Best be exemplary in manner. Just in case.

“Emperor, I am, as ever, your humble servant,” Voren said, careful to refrain from even a whisper of insubordination, glad his subtle insolence from before had been missed. “What was it you wished to see me about?”

Rekaj breathed deeply, seeming to calm somewhat, Voren hoped. “Yes. There is one small matter I wish to discuss with you.” He brushed smooth his black-and-red-silk attire—the vestments of his station. “There was . . . that is to say, did you feel anything unusual today?”

Voren fought the urge to shudder. He’d never seen the emperor so perturbed and did not know what to expect. “Unusual? How so?”

“As in . . . sorcerous disturbance.”

Voren thought to the recent event between the wisps. Could that be what he was referring to? It did not seem likely.

“No,” replied Voren after a few moments. “I felt nothing today that could qualify as ‘disturbance,’ sorcerous or otherwise. What is this all about?”

The emperor ignored the question, clasping his hands behind his back, and began strolling aimlessly, eyes glazed over. Voren knew better than to disturb him during one of these fugues, for he was well familiar with what was happening behind Rekaj’s blank expression.

Reality had to be placed on hiatus, after all, if one wished to access ancient memories.

Something happened, something new. Yet, it is connected to something so very old?
None of the possibilities reassured him. Voren did not need to access his own memories to know there was little from his past he would wish to see returned.

The emperor swiveled back to Voren, features firmly back in the present. “Tell me one thing, then. Have you entered communion lately?”

“Communion? No, of course not.” He chuckled, half from nerves, half from disbelief. “I would have no one to talk to, naturally. Unless, of course, one of my kin somehow found a way through the Shroud.” The sheer absurdity of the suggestion drove him into even greater fits of laughter. “Whatever would compel you to ask such a thing?”

Rekaj narrowed his gaze on Voren. “Nothing. Mind your place. It is
not
to question me.”

Voren’s mirth was swept away like feathers before a storm. Feeling a chill start to creep up his spine, he bowed his head in obeisance.

The emperor stormed out. Voren was left alone, and an abundance of questions swirled in his head, none of which he could even begin to answer. Whatever had happened, it meant
change
. Voren had almost forgotten what the word meant, so absorbed as he was in playing the harmless, obedient prisoner. But how long can such a mask be worn before the act is no longer a fiction?

Shame flooded his soul as he realized just how empty it had become.

V
ASHODIA
ST
ROLLED
ALONG
the Chasm’s edge at the cusp of night. She soaked in the burgeoning darkness like a lizard did the sun on a cold day. She was separated from the brink by a mere finger’s width, but she feared neither falling nor the hungry maw of depthless shadow below.

It was her home, after all.

She spied her destination and began skipping along. She held apart the folds of her robe, which was so dark as to seem a part of the night itself. It was, in fact, enchanted just for this effect. No, not
enchanted—
such a word was used by the ignorant, which was everyone but her. Rather, it was
augmented
. Yes, a much more accurate description.

The path before her ended abruptly, cleaved by a deep ravine a dozen paces across that bent and twisted its way up into the barren hillsides to the east. Without hesitation, Vashodia marched off into the void.

Falling, she energized briefly and formed a cushion of air below her feet as thick as stone—no, again she corrected herself. It
was
stone. There. She crafted ropes and tethered one end of each to the cliff top, and the other to the platform upon which she now stood. Her descent slowed. She lengthened the ropes to allow for brisk yet controlled passage down.

Though the night was dark, it was not pure. Not even close. It was a passive thing, beset by two moons and a cacophony of stars. Vapid, hollow.

The darkness into which she now passed was everything night was not. It . . . filled, with intention and rapacity. The dark energy gathered here, thick as foam, made her giggle in delight.

At last, Vashodia reached the ground. A vast cavern opened up, the ends so distant even her mierothi eyes had trouble discerning its scope. What filled it, though, not even humans could fail to see.

Darkwisps. A hundred thousand at least.

“Knock-knock,” she said in a high, singsong voice. “Anybody home?”

The normally dormant creatures buzzed into a frenzy of activity at her intrusion. They spun through the air, converging on a point several paces in front of her. They stopped, though, afraid to come closer.

They had learned that lesson the hard way.

She reached into her robe and brought forth two spherical objects. They were the size of her fist and crafted from a dull metal, closer to the look of burnished stone than the glint of a sword. She tossed them on the ground. The hovering mass of darkwisps flinched back.

That will do you no good, my little friends.

Vashodia spoke, and though her voice seemed that of a young girl—matching her face and the size of her body—her tone left no doubt that she was, in fact, commanding.

“Come, darkwisps.

“Come, death-sighs of watered souls.

“Come, machines of a sundered past.”

Vashodia paused and giggled once more.

“Come to your new home, you naughty little things.”

The spheres opened up, revealing a hollow center. The mass of sparking creatures began slowly descending, contracting.

“Are you watching?” she said. “Ruul? Elos? Can you see?”

Darkwisps now flowed like a stream into the spheres.

“Ah, but what use is sight if you are lacking in
vision
?”

They drew in on themselves, collapsing into a point like a flake of ash, and huddled inside.

“And so, the first day ends. A day long striven for. And all the boys and girls dance to every twitch upon their strings. But who holds those strings?”

The spheres reached their capacity and closed. The remaining darkwisps scuttled away, as if in relief that they had escaped her prison. This time, anyway.

“NO ONE!”

The spheres jumped to her hands and disappeared once more into the pockets of her robes.

Finally, she whispered, “And isn’t that the cruelest joke of all.”

Chapter 2

M
EVON
STARED
AT
the back of the sorceress’s green robe, stained now by dirt and sweat. The summer still held strong this far north, and despite the high elevation of the mountain passes, the past two days of riding had seen them all drenched and reeking by noon. Now, as they left behind the narrow trails and descended onto plains of ochre grasses, the days would grow even warmer, and the welcome gusts of glacial wind would cease.

The Fist spread out, like fingers long clenched now unfolding. Mevon could see the tension wane as the men expanded into a broad circle, each mounted man now with room to breathe without fear of inhaling someone else’s stench. Quake, his loyal draft horse, tossed his ash-colored mane in approval.

He and his captains stayed in the center. Ahead of them rode four of his Elite, crossbows held in a manner that would only seem casual to the untrained eye. Between them, the sorceress. His low-burning fury flared as he watched her sway on her borrowed horse.

Her arms were tied behind her. Dirty blond hair fell down her back, straight and long. No one would ever call her fat, but her short, plump form hinted at a softness that he did not consider unpleasant. Nothing about her seemed threatening in the least.

Still, Mevon had yet to speak to her.

He was not a slave to fear, as so many were. No, that had been beaten out of him at a young age by his masters. Once he learned just how little anyone—casters especially—could do to harm him, fear became a thing only the weak knew.

He had been four when he first witnessed the death of a sorcerer. The man had been pitted against one of the older students. A test for one, a lesson for the rest. Mevon never forgot what he saw that day, and spent every moment of the next six years in eager anticipation of his own trial. His first kill. And in the thousand since then, his courage had not faltered. Not even once.

Until now.

She was . . . impossible. A caster’s inability to directly affect a Hardohl was one of the few truths he knew to be indisputable. What had she done? How had she done it? Why had she done it to
him
—he felt sure he had been specifically targeted. What possible repercussions would there be for his kind, and the empire, if her secret was revealed? Mevon shuddered. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answers.

He had two days to decide. By then, they’d be in Thorull, and she’d be taken out of his hands to be executed.

And Mevon, for the first time in his life, did not know what to do.

He stared at the woman’s back and let his rage boil.

“Planning on shaving with that, Mevon?” asked Tolvar, riding up on his side.

Mevon jerked in his saddle. “What?” He followed his captain’s gaze down to where his own hand rested, knuckles white over the handle of one dagger. Somehow, he had drawn it without realizing.

“I think not,” said Arozir. He gestured ahead to the sorceress. “I would bet he means to finish what that blade began.”

The weapon was the very same one Mevon had used to kill the sorcerer. He did his best to ignore the amused faces of his captains as he slammed the dagger back into its sheath. “Why I ever chose you two, I’ll never know. At least Idrus pretends a little respect.”

The ranger captain shrugged.

“We were a package deal, that’s why,” Tolvar said. “Being cousins, ’n’ all.”

“And a bargain at that,” added Arozir.

“Only cost a few drops of that precious Hardohl blood to seal the deal.”

“Though quite a bit more of ours.”

Mevon remember the day of their trial well. He’d already trounced several applicant groups without a scratch, and had nearly given up on finding suitable men to join as his personal Elite. These three changed all that. Unarmed, he had faced them, and Idrus had managed to break his skin with a well-timed dagger throw. Such a move was only possible because Tolvar and Arozir, abandoning all sense of self-preservation, had thrown themselves at Mevon, wrapping themselves around his legs to keep him distracted.

“Aye. But it sure was worth it, eh?”

“Of course, Tolvar,” Arozir said. “The last twelve years we spent sloughing through the woods, chasing criminals, and fighting off insects would have been so different from our fate had we remained in the army.”

“Exactly. We’d have been doing all that, only without this fancy armor.”

“And fancy weapons.”

“And fancy women.”

“And—wait. What women?”

As the two devolved into an argument over pay grades and the price of a “lady’s” company, Idrus leaned in and whispered in Mevon’s ear, “Let me remind you, though close relations to each other, they are rather distant from me.”

“No reminder is needed,” Mevon told him.

The truth of that was evident enough. Where Idrus was tall, lithe, and dark-haired, the other two were stocky, with heads topped by curly flame-red hair.

“Oh, come now,” Arozir still argued with Tolvar. “You know the real reason we joined the Elite was because of the daeloth.”

“Of course it was. Idiots couldn’t strategize their way out of a stack of hay.”

“And we’d much rather hunt casters down . . .”

“ . . . than take orders from them.”

Mevon grunted agreement.

“It’s no wonder the empire has such a problem with bandits,” said Arozir. “From lowest lieutenant to the supreme arcanod himself, the army’s officers have failed to embrace what should be common sense to any fighting man.”

Tolvar grinned. “ ‘Know your enemy, else fall prey to the unseen danger.’ ”

To this, even Idrus acknowledged agreement.

Mevon sighed. As ridiculous as his captains’ talk was, it had clarified much for him. He knew what he needed to do.

He tapped his heels into Quake’s flanks, urging his mount into a trot. The four Elite nodded at Mevon as he drew close.

“Give me a moment,” Mevon said. “It’s time she and I had a . . . chat.”

“Aye,” they called. They flashed him knowing smirks and rode off to join the perimeter.

Mevon was alone with the sorceress, for the first time since she . . .

He shook his head and took one last look around to make sure no prying ears were in range. He had prepared a series of questions, but as he drew alongside her, they vanished from his mind. His pulse quickened as he remembered the image of her body standing, arms raised and holding her spell over him. Of his face pressed into the moist soil.

Of his weakness.

He leaned towards her, heat rising. “What did you
do
to me, woman?”

She swung her head to face him, took a deep breath, and smiled. “Jasside,” she said. “Jasside Anglasco.” She looked away, nose in the air—like she was a lady of some merchant family and offended by his presence. “Since you didn’t bother to even ask my name, why should I bother answering you?”

“Because I can make your life very . . . unpleasant while you’re in my care.”

“Could you?” She leaned back, as if to get a more thorough view. She studied him, her eyes like honey on burnt bread, and twisted her plump lips in a gesture that said “unimpressed.” “Being a killer is one thing, even if you enjoy it. But a torturer? Rapist? Murderer? I’d think even you would hesitate to cross those lines.”

He clenched his jaw. “Three days ago, you would have been right.” He spied her neck, so pale and fragile. He fought the urge to snap it like a twig. His hand twitched towards her, and he had to concentrate to keep from reaching out. “But I’ve learned things about myself since then. Now . . . ? Who knows what I’m capable of?”

He heard her sniff sharply.
Ah, am I getting through to you now?

Jasside dipped her head. “Very well. I will tell you what you wish to know.”

Mevon waited, shaking, and hated her all the more for it.

“Your blessings,” she said. “I presume you know how they work?”

“How? No, not exactly. I just know they make it easier for me to do my job.”

“Easier to kill others, you mean. Easier to live through injuries that would claim the lives of ordinary men.”

“Yes—fine. What of it?”

She hid her face from him. In a whisper so low Mevon wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it, she said, “Children with the power of gods . . . is there anything more horrifying?”

Jasside turned back. Unshed tears pooled in her eyes. Her lips quivered with an emotion Mevon knew well: rage. He looked down at the dagger in his hand, which had again removed itself from its sheath without his realizing.

Of course. The sorcerer.

“Your partner,” Mevon said, “the one I killed. What was he to you?”

She trembled, sending a single tear down her freckled cheek. “He was my half brother. Though, we grew up together after—” She choked off her speech. Her jaw set, and she plunged forward without further hesitation. “But you were asking about your blessings. Well, when I was a little girl—”

Mevon clamped his hand down on her upper arm. She let out a sound like the squeak of a dying mouse. “Stop dissembling,” he said. “Tell me what I want to know.”

Jasside glanced frantically from his hand to his eyes as her breath became short and labored. Most casters panicked when cut off from their power, so her reaction didn’t surprise him. He held her a few beats more, just to get his point across, before letting go.

“There is a gap in your natural defense against sorcery,” she said, breathlessly. “And your blessings are the gateway.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

‘Then think, Mevon, for once in your life. And don’t just bark the explanations given to you by those holding your leash.”

“Watch your tongue, sorceress, else I’ll rip it out.”

She raised her chin. “Then my secrets die with me. If I’m on my way to die anyway, it’s no burden for me to ride in silence the rest of the way.”

Mevon, summoning willpower from the depths of his soul, slowly sheathed the dagger. “Abyss take you, woman.” But he did wave for her to continue.

A look of satisfaction crossed her features but vanished quickly. She shrugged. “That’s all I know, really. You’re more familiar with the blessing process than I. You figure it out.”

Her advice seemed genuine, even heartfelt, and he surprised himself by taking it.

For once, he
thought
.

Blessings were first bestowed upon infants within days of arrival at the Hardohl academy. They manifested as visual markings upon the back: white rose and black thorns. There was more, Mevon knew, something about blood binding and subdermal inscriptions, but he had never cared to pay attention to the specifics.

He only knew that two men prepared and bestowed every single blessing.

Emperor Rekaj, and his pet valynkar, Voren.

Does one of them know about this weakness? Or, worse . . . had they put it there?

Mevon clenched his jaw and narrowed his gaze on Jasside. “Where did you learn how to do this?”

She smiled. “I saw someone else do it first. And I
am
a fast learner.”

“Who?”

“A mierothi. I never learned her name, but I watched as she was attacked by a Hardohl and did . . . what I did to you.”

“Who was she? What did she look like?”

“She was short, almost childlike. And she had an amused if somewhat cruel smile on her face.”

Mevon cringed. All Hardohl had a standing order to kill on sight one particular mierothi. He had no idea what she had done to earn the emperor’s ire, but he knew more than one of his peers had disappeared after chasing rumors of her whereabouts. He knew her, even if Jasside did not.

Vashodia.

If she knows, then . . . who else? All of the mierothi?

More questions than he had begun with swirled around in his head. More fears.
The possible implications of this knowledge. . .

No. He was letting his thoughts run wild, chasing darkwisps into the Chasm. He would do nothing until he knew more. But how could he? Who could he ask? They would put him on the Ropes for voicing the least of his questions.

He had no choice. He would keep silent.

And Jasside? Well, as she said, her silence was soon guaranteed to be permanent.

A
FETID
MIST
drifted up from bog, coating skin and bark alike in its slick stench. Yandumar didn’t mind, though, since the Imperial forces sent against them skirted the patch of marshland. Just as he had predicted.

Imperial tactics haven’t changed much since I’ve been gone. Thank God for small blessings.

Yandumar lifted up from his crouch, wincing as his knees cracked. He knew it was a good thing he had found Gilshamed when he had. Another few years, and his old bones wouldn’t have enough fight left in them to see this through. Not that such a thing would have stopped him. He took a vow, after all. And a vow made by one of his people never went unfulfilled.

But it would have been much more uncomfortable.

He glanced over at the valynkar, who stood with eyes closed, still as stone. With hair an impossibly golden gold, and skin so perfect it looked like porcelain, the unfamiliar observer would be hard-pressed to tell him apart from a statue. Yandumar had often seen him like that at night. Conserving his energy. He could still cast without the sun, it just took more out of him.

The Timid Moon flared to life above them. Gilshamed opened his eyes. “It is time,” he said.

Yandumar ran his fingers through the grey beard hanging to the middle of his chest. “Right. So, how’s this going to work again?”

Gilshamed shot his head over, locking his eerie golden eyes on him. “Did you not pay attention when I explained to the others?”

“I was listening—I promise I was! But all that wizardry talk sounds like monkey babble to me. No offense.”

Gilshamed sighed. “Very well. I shall endeavor to explain in terms even a monkey could understand.”

“Ha! Fair enough.”

Gilshamed pointed to the object in Yandumar’s hand, a metal sphere. It had a band around it with a hinge on one side and a clasp on the other. “That is our link.” Gilshamed held up his own hand, which held an identical device. “So long as we both have possession of these, I will be able to direct my sorcery on you, as if you were me.”