Conquest Unbound, page 45
‘Thank you. And remember, Lugol is safe, because it has you.’ He passed under the portcullis and walked slowly down the span, taking comfort in the knowledge that sentries watched him, and that his city had a strong protector.
Neferata was seated as she had been the night before. She bowed her head in greeting as Ormand approached the gap in the span and sat down on his stump of pillar. ‘I am glad to see you, Lord Ormand,’ she said. ‘I am flattered that you have accepted to continue our dialogue.’ Her laughter was melodious with veiled cruelty. ‘We have so much to say to one another!’
‘I doubt that,’ Ormand said. ‘Yet I am here, notwithstanding. What is it that we have to discuss?’
‘My enlightenment! I seek to understand the true nature of Lugol’s greatness. Tell me, please, what is it that you think you have accomplished here?’
‘We have freed Lugol from you, and from Nagash,’ he said proudly.
Neferata cocked her head, giving Ormand a long, amused look. ‘I see that you do not jest. You cannot really believe that, can you? All that dies belongs to Nagash, and everything must die. And this is Shyish. All life in this realm exists only with the forbearance of the Great Necromancer.’
‘Is that true of the Stormcast Eternals?’
Neferata shrugged gracefully. ‘They will learn who owns them, in due time. And you are not eternal, Lord Ormand. Do you think you will escape Nagash after your death?’
‘I do not know what will happen to me when I die,’ Ormand said. ‘Therefore, it is not my concern. I know what will happen to Lugol, and I am content with that.’
‘That does not seem much of a prize.’
‘Oh, it is. I am free of Nagash while I live, and so is every soul within our walls.’
‘If I grant that you are correct in what you say,’ said Neferata, ‘what does that accomplish?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘How do you benefit?’
‘In freedom, as I said.’
‘What freedom?’
‘Your question is a foolish one. You have been answered.’
‘Are you going, Lord Ormand? So soon?’
He hadn’t noticed that he had risen. His body wanted him to leave. The proximity of the Mortarch made his heart pound with anxiety. He was sweating. His hands shook.
Furious with himself, he sat back down. ‘I find it painful to sit still too long,’ he muttered.
If she thought he was lying, she gave no sign. ‘Let us return to the question of benefit. I ask again, what is the good of this freedom you claim to have achieved? Do you not live in fear of the likes of me?’ She looked up and pointed, her arm striking like a serpent. A moment later, she snatched an arrow out of the air. She shook her head. ‘Your guards are anxious, Lord Ormand, and easily startled.’ She waved at the sentries, and sat back, relaxed. ‘Do you see what I mean? The life of Lugol must be one of perpetual siege, even when no army is present.’
‘Do not mistake vigilance for fear,’ said Ormand.
‘Do not mistake fear for vigilance,’ Neferata countered. ‘And consider the other aspects of your struggle. You have no protection other than your own. Or do you have a permanent garrison of the Stormcast Eternals in Lugol?’
For the first time, Ormand laughed. ‘I am insulted by so transparent a ploy for information.’
Neferata looked serious. ‘You should be insulted, if that was what it was. My question was rhetorical. I know that the Anvils of the Heldenhammer left Lugol for more pressing campaigns quite some time ago. We might say that accomplishing what you have in the past year and more is all the more impressive for having been done without their help. Is that true, though? My reach has grown too. The mountains to your east, and the plains to the horizon, are all part of Neferatia. Lugol has no strategic significance. It is nestled within my borders, and so an attack by the forces of Chaos is unlikely. You benefit from my protection without the pledge of fealty.’
‘We want none of your protection,’ said Ormand.
‘No, you seek protection from me.’ The white of her teeth glinted in the deepening evening, as if she were bathed in a fell light with no source other than her own presence.
‘We do not seek what we have achieved. You cannot enter here.’ No matter how much she pretended not to care, that was the truth of the situation, and Ormand took pride in reminding her of it.
‘What else do you shut out?’ Neferata asked. ‘What else, when your existence is nothing but struggle and terror? Is it to your benefit that your possibilities of trade are so reduced?’
‘They are sufficient to our needs.’
‘Sufficient to your needs,’ Neferata repeated. ‘A pauper’s phrase, devoid of anything that makes existence worth experiencing. What of joy, Lord Ormand? Is there joy in Lugol?’
‘Who are you to speak of joy?’ Ormand shot back.
‘Who better? My joys are many. Even this conversation is one. Art is another. Art is not sufficient to a need. Not in the sense that you mean, because I suspect you do not conceive of needs that are not related to a ration of food and a strong wall. Art is the excess to existence that makes it worthwhile. How do your sculptors fare in Lugol? Your painters? Your jewellers? Your poets and your musicians? Do they exist?’
‘This is pointless,’ said Ormand.
Neferata brushed his weak response away. ‘Look at your towers and walls, Lord Ormand,’ she said. ‘Look at them with my eyes. I see bare stone. I see no ornamentation. I see no pride except in the fluttering of banners, and how ancient are they? Are they the last flourishing of art in Lugol? Do you have no space at all for the vitality of excess?’
‘Excess,’ said Ormand. ‘The word seems important to you. Perhaps it describes you and your works very well. But I think what we are really discussing is decadence.’ He spat the word, disgusted.
‘Yes!’ Neferata cried, overjoyed. ‘Yes! Decadence is right. The greatest art is decadent. If it were not, it would be sorely lacking, and in danger of being that worst of things, instructive. Oh, Lord Ormand, you should travel with me back to Nulahmia. Your succession is assured, as you said. There is nothing to hold you here. Come, and see what art can be. If I could show you the murals in the Palace of Seven Vultures. If you could see how ebony and gold and human bone can become one, making even the most humble candelabra exquisite, its beauty so far beyond the requirements of its function that beauty has become its true end. If you could hear the purity of music when it is worked upon still-living flesh. If only I could show you the sublimity that comes when cruelty removes all the fetters of art.’
Ormand was on his feet again. ‘That is monstrous.’
‘It is!’ said Neferata. ‘Perhaps you begin to understand.’
‘I have heard enough,’ Ormand said. He began to walk away.
‘I don’t think you have,’ said Neferata, her voice following him, its melody wrapping around him like guilt. ‘I think you should come again tomorrow. Until then, again I wish you rest. But think upon our words. Look for joy in your city, Lord Ormand. Look, and tell me tomorrow if you find it.’
It was another bad night. Ormand barely slept at all this time. He was troubled by more than Neferata’s arguments. An hour after he retired to his bed, he began to cough. The fits shook him hard. They left him exhausted and spitting drops of blood. During the last month, he had been finding himself progressively shorter of breath. Now, when he breathed, his chest ached with the effort, and his lungs were scraped and ragged. When dawn finally came, he dragged himself from his bed with far less strength than the little he had had the evening before.
He was slow in dressing, slow enough that Kristane came to see if something was wrong.
‘All is well,’ he told her. He leaned on her arm and they walked out of the keep’s waking bastion and into the sun of the square that overlooked the rest of Lugol. ‘My time is drawing to its close,’ he said.
‘Father,’ Kristane said, and swallowed hard.
‘Please don’t grieve. I am grateful. My body weighs heavily upon me. I will be glad to set this burden down.’
‘This is the work of Neferata.’
‘Loath as I am to defend her in any way, this is not her doing. I saw the end approach well before she arrived.’
‘Perhaps so,’ Kristane said. ‘But please, do not speak with her again tonight.’
Ormand gave her arm a squeeze. ‘I have nothing left to fear. Allow me this indulgence. It is my last combat, even if it is just a duel of words.’
He left Kristane then, to make what he thought might be his last walk through the streets of his city. He spent the day, resting often, making his way down to the base of the hill and the outermost of Lugol’s walls, and then even more painfully walking back uphill. During the entire journey, he thought about what Neferata had said, and he saw the free city with different eyes. He saw the oppressive blankness of the stone façades. He saw the anxiety gnawing at the faces of his subjects. He saw people endlessly watching for the next person to die, so they might expel corpse and memory of friend or kin as soon as possible. Mourning was forbidden in Lugol, not through decree but through terror, as if the contemplation of loss were an invitation to death to pass through the gates.
There was no art. There was no joy.
But there is freedom. He kept telling himself that. He held on to the accomplishment of Lugol as tightly as he did his cane.
He clutched it still when twilight came and he headed out onto the bridge once again. Ormand was eager to speak with Neferata this time. He would deny her the victory of his despair.
Neferata’s face was solemn as he lowered himself onto his seat. ‘You don’t look well,’ she said.
‘I am near my end,’ he said. ‘So there is really no reason for me to fear you.’
‘I have said so from the beginning.’
‘Now I am certain.’
‘Tell me,’ Neferata said softly. ‘Have you lived well? Is your purpose fulfilled?’
‘I have, and it is.’
‘I am glad for you.’
‘That is kind.’
‘No,’ said Neferata, cold as absence. ‘I am not kind. Only a fool would think that of me.’
‘I am no fool,’ said Ormand.
‘You are not. So you knew I would not leave things there. I will make you defend your claim. You say your purpose is fulfilled. I ask, was it a worthy purpose? Was it worth the expense of your life?’
‘Of course it was.’
‘Did you do as I asked? Did you search for joy in your city?’
Ormand didn’t answer.
‘Did you find it?’
He kept his silence. He would not be drawn into an obvious trap.
Neferata continued to speak as if she had received the response she had expected.
‘Purpose,’ she said. ‘Forces that are greater than ourselves impose obligations upon us. But purpose is self-created. I believe our purposes should be judged like any other form of creation.’ She paused. ‘Like any form of art.’ She smiled. ‘I look at your purpose, and see its embodiment in your city, and my judgement is a harsh one, Lord Ormand. There is no joy here. Listen to me. Listen to my words, to their sound, to the rhythms of my speech and the promise of music they contain. Listen to me, as you would the songs that have vanished from Lugol.’
Ormand listened. Her voice swirled around him. It carried him along the flow of words and meaning. It was intoxicating, and he knew it was, but he knew there was nothing left to risk. Anything she tried with him was too late. He listened, he indulged in the melody, and when she was done, he would counter her arguments. He would turn his back on whatever blandishment she proffered. He would linger on the shores of her call until then.
‘You have denied the aesthetic, Lord Ormand,’ said Neferata. ‘That is the crime for which you stand condemned. You have banished death. You have reduced it to the monotony of sheer disposal. You deny the surprise of death and its larger creation. You have turned your back on the revel of what comes after. The joy of blood, Lord Ormand, the eternal artistry of undeath and the immortality of change. Imagine them with me. Hear their glory in my voice. See their transcendence in my eyes. The gulf between us is meaningless if you send your imagination across the bridge. Listen and feel and learn, Lord Ormand. Know what you have rejected. Will you know, if only for a moment, what could have been? Will you know, if only for a moment, how to be surprised by the beauty of death?’
Just for a moment.
He felt it, then, the faintest touch of what he had denied himself and his city. He graced the edge of the monstrously sublime. The intricate convolutions of cruelties planned over centuries and enacted over generations revealed themselves as vistas of perfection. The exhilaration was vertiginous. He might fall from a height much greater than the bridge.
‘Enough,’ Neferata said.
Ormand blinked, bringing reality back into place before him. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Enough.’ He stood quickly, energy coursing through his frame. He had confronted temptation so great he could barely understand its nature, and he had triumphed. He felt stronger than he had for decades. ‘We will speak no more,’ he said.
‘Before you go,’ said Neferata, ‘shall I tell you what I want?’
‘Yes. For all the good it will do you.’
‘I do not want to lay siege to Lugol, Lord Ormand,’ she said. ‘There is a much more elegant way for the city to fall to me. I want you to do my work for me. I want you to go inside, and set about its destruction.’
Ormand smiled. ‘You want what will not happen,’ he said.
‘Oh, but it will.’
‘And how is that possible?’
‘Because you are my thrall.’
Ormand’s smile froze and Neferata’s grew broad and knowing.
‘Feel your heartbeat, Lord Ormand.’
He put his hand to his chest. He felt nothing. He clutched harder, and then, to his horror, he realised that he was not breathing. ‘What...’ he began.
‘You are dead, Lord Ormand. You died as you were caught in the spell of my voice. Vampirism takes many forms. I can drain your essence through means other than blood. Now you have the infinite vistas of undeath before you. Will you throw them away?’
‘No,’ Ormand said, and with a silent cry of despair, his will died. He would never disobey his queen, who had unveiled such truths to him, and given him so great a gift.
‘Go then,’ said Neferata. ‘Go and bring art to Lugol.’
Neferata returned the following night. The shimmer of wards that had surrounded Lugol was gone. She stood at the broken edge of the Suspire Bridge and waited. Shortly after her arrival, the portcullis rose and Kristane, armoured and robed, strode from the tower to the other side of the breach. ‘Queen Neferata,’ she said.
‘Lady Kristane. Tell me why you are here.’
‘To bend the knee to you,’ Kristane said, and she did, bowing her head. ‘I am here at my father’s bidding. There is no longer any need for succession. My father’s reign in Lugol will be eternal, and so I have come to offer you my service.’
‘Rise, Lady Kristane.’
Kristane stood.
‘Smile for me.’
Kristane obeyed, bearing her fangs. ‘Lugol is yours forever,’ she said.
‘I am pleased.’ Neferata held out her hand. ‘Let us go, then. The celebration of blood awaits you.’
Kristane stepped across the empty air and took her hand.
THE WOLF AND THE RAT
C L Werner
Beneath the display of smug arrogance, the Wolf could smell the tang of fear. There was no masking the scent, not from the lord of Ulfenkarn. Radukar let his lip curl back in the faintest hint of a smile, one pearly fang glistening in the flickering candlelight.
There was a moment where Radukar could see the confidence in the speaker’s attitude falter. His voice caught, and from the base of the dais the messenger’s eyes darted to the guards positioned either side of the Wolf’s throne. Though they stood at the foot of the steps, their brutish heads were on the same level as that of their seated master. Kosargi Nightguard – vicious ogors who’d served Radukar in life and continued to obey his every command in undeath. Even to a vampire they were an imposing sight, and a formidable menace.
‘These terms are generous,’ the messenger said.
Radukar tapped one of his clawed fingers against the arm of his throne, digging his nail into the wood and letting the splinters scatter to the floor. The chair had been carved for a prince of the ven Altens from shadeoak, one of the toughest woods known in Shyish, and this reminder that the ogors were far from the most fearsome thing in the Ebon Citadel seemed not to go unnoticed by the messenger. The vampire’s flesh was already pale, and it was impossible for the undead to sweat, but Radukar could smell the fear crawling through the messenger’s gut like an infestation of maggots.
‘We only want what is our right,’ the messenger said, making a show of assuming a bold posture, as though such theatrics could deceive the Wolf.
‘Valac Chrobak.’ Radukar let the name hiss from between his fangs. ‘What do you expect to gain from this? What is to be your reward?’
‘The governing council will be re-established,’ Valac said.
‘And Kritza has told you that you will sit on this council?’ The question came in a low growl.
All pretence of Valac’s bravado was suddenly extinguished, and he waved his arms in a placating gesture. ‘There is a place for you on the council…’
Radukar leaned forwards, his crimson eyes boring down into the other vampire. ‘Is that so? I am to be permitted to share power, am I? A council of equals, is it?’ He barked with cruel laughter. ‘You will sit at the table as my equal, Valac Chrobak? Were you not a traitor I would appoint you as my jester. You have a flair for the absurd.’
