The Hollow King, page 28
‘I understand,’ said Cado.
Vaux gave a curt nod.
Cado began to turn away.
‘We have not been able to find any of Worthy Damascene’s possessions,’ said Vaux. Cado turned back. Vaux frowned. ‘Her chambers looked as though they had been ruined for years. No trace of anything, as if she had never been. People are starting to struggle to remember her face or what she said.’
‘You will not find anything,’ said Cado. ‘Soon you will not even know who I meant if I told you her name.’
‘You will remember her, though?’ asked Vaux.
‘I am not mortal. My memories are part of my soul, and what has been sold cannot be stolen.’
Vaux’s frown hardened for a second, then she nodded.
‘There is something that I do remember.’ A half-smile formed for an instant on Vaux’s mouth. ‘A messenger came and talked with her, no more than a dozen days ago. I remember that, but I can’t remember what they looked like or what reason Dama… Dama…’ Vaux’s voice faltered. She frowned and shook her head as though trying to force out something that was slipping away as she spoke. ‘She received them personally. What reason she gave for them coming here I don’t know. We do not get many travellers from across the boundaries of the underworld. I never saw them again. But I did find this – it dropped from their saddlebags.’ She opened a metal box and took out a vial of black crystal. A leather thong wrapped the neck just under the stopper. The device of a skull with skeletal hands pressed over its eyes had been etched into its side. Vaux handed it to Cado.
‘You know what it is?’ she asked.
‘It’s Night’s Tears, water taken from the Black Lake and poured into a vial by a blind mortal under the light of the moon. It’s a charm against the senses of the Nighthaunt.’
‘Made in the city of Lethis,’ said Vaux.
Lethis… But he could not go back to Lethis. Not now, perhaps not ever. Except if this came from there then that was where the road led. He almost laughed.
He looked up at Vaux.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
She gave a small nod and went back to the maps laid across the table. He was about to leave when a pair of guards came up the steps; between them was Leragrais. The magister looked crumpled, older even than he had been before. He was rubbing his wrists, and Cado could see the red marks of where the manacles had been. He glanced up at Cado, flinched and then dropped his gaze.
Cado turned back to Vaux. ‘This man betrayed you and all the people of this city.’
Vaux looked at him, irritation spreading across her face.
‘He also helped save it. Without him we would still be facing whichever of the enemies had triumphed outside the walls. Besides, Magister Leragrais is still a member of the Council of Worthies,’ she said.
‘A council of which only he is left,’ said Cado.
‘That matter will be addressed.’
Cado looked at Leragrais as the man shuffled to the table.
‘All I have done is to deny the forces that would destroy us,’ said Leragrais. ‘I will continue to do that.’
‘Enemies will come again,’ said Cado.
‘And when they do, this city will need all the strength that it has,’ said Vaux, her tone final. Cado looked at Leragrais again. The man did not meet his eye.
‘He cannot be trusted.’
Vaux shrugged. ‘Who can be?’
Cado stood for a moment and then turned and left. Behind him he heard the murmur of conversation between the two.
The skull moon was high in the star-pocked sky as Cado led his horse out of the city gate. The guards wound the iron doors back to let him through, but none said a word to him. He wondered if Vaux had ordered them into silence, or if it was instinctive. Every mortal in the city knew what he was now – he was not one of them, not mortal, not living; a thing of hunger and bloodshed. He could see that knowledge in the eyes of the few who looked at him directly, the same cold wariness that you would look at a wolf or lion with.
The gate began to close as soon as he passed through.
‘Wait!’ The shout came from up the road leading to the gate. Cado heard feet slapping on the stones. He turned to see Valentin running towards him, hands raised. Ama was with him, his stride shorter but quicker. The guards hesitated, hands still on the handles of the chain drums which pulled the gates closed. ‘Wait,’ called Valentin again, ‘keep the gates open.’ One of the guards looked ready to argue, but the smith rattled the bird-skull medallion hanging around his neck, and the gates stayed open.
Valentin stopped just through the open gates, panting, hands resting on his thighs as he breathed.
‘Where are you going?’ said Ama.
Cado looked at the boy. There was a defiant gleam in the eyes that looked back.
‘I have a long journey that I must continue,’ said Cado.
‘You…’ panted Valentin, straightening. ‘I know what the seneschal said but…’ He lapsed into a coughing gasp for a moment. Cado looked at the amulet around the smith’s neck.
‘You are one of the Council of Worthies now,’ said Cado.
Valentin nodded, coughed again, and found his breath. ‘Vaux is not this city. You saved us. You can stay. You have earned that.’
Cado swung up into the saddle and turned for the gate. He turned once as he rode under the arch and looked back to where Valentin and Ama stood.
‘Live well,’ he said.
‘Until we meet again,’ answered Valentin.
Cado turned and passed through the gate. Ahead the pinnacles of stone rose against the night sky. The wings of pale birds flicked across the stars, and their cries rose. He did not look back. Not when he heard the last calls of the boy or the smith, or the sound of the gate shutting. Before him, the stones of the road shone white under the light of the skull moon, beckoning towards the edge of the world hidden behind the fold of night. Cado nodded to himself and walked on.
EPILOGUE
Aurelias paused to catch his breath on the threshold of the sanctuary. He knew that his queen would hear the rattle of mortal weakness in his chest, but a spark of pride made him want to come before her composed and without the weakness of age so obvious. She would grant him a draught of elixir soon, he knew. She never let his decrepitude reach a point where it interfered with his duties. Still, he knew that watching him struggle with his mortality amused her. That she would likely never raise him to the Aristocracy of Night was a fact that he had come to terms with long ago. But there were other routes to immortality, and he had watched the intrigues of the Soulblighted for long enough to know that their un-life was a curse more than a gift. No, better to be as he was: a servant, despised by all but protected by his queen’s power. Yes, better to live in the shadow of a throne than sit on it.
His breath was coming smoother now. He resettled his robes over his shoulders and forced the latter back from the hunch they had been assuming. They had once called him the most handsome man in Lethis, and a ghost of those looks still lingered under the folds and creases of his face. He closed his eyes for a second then stepped into the chamber. Moonlight greeted him, pouring down from the opening cut in the ceiling. The walls and floor were black, mirror smooth so that pale reflections followed him as he crossed to the red pool in the room’s centre. The queen sat at its edge, her legs dangling in the liquid, languid kicks sending thick ripples across the surface. The edge of her ivory robe was crusted with clotted red where the liquid had splashed. She looked up at Aurelias as he came to a stop beside her.
‘Yes?’ she said.
It took a second for him to reply. No matter how many times he saw her face, it never failed to steal his thoughts.
‘Trouble,’ he said at last. One of the strange privileges of being the queen’s principal mortal thrall was that he did not need to address her with any of the formality or deference that her court did. No bowing, no titles or obeisance. That was one of the reasons her blood-children loathed him, of course.
‘They have sent an emissary,’ said the queen. She dipped a finger into the pool and stirred the surface. ‘And they have moved forces into the fastness on the boundary to the south.’
Aurelias nodded. She knew already, naturally. A great, blood-bloated spider at the centre of a web of secrets, that was what she was – ancient and terrible and as beautiful as the silver smile of a knife.
‘Some amongst the court are already saying that the only option is to raise the legions, and that an example must be made.’
‘Do they?’ She smiled. ‘In a way they are right. The positions have become clear, the pieces set, and only the predictable moves remain…’ She flicked her hand at the pool. The gesture was small, but the surface churned. Red splashed into the air and spattered the queen’s face. She stood, rolled her shoulders and stretched as though she had just woken from a pleasant sleep. ‘We must upset the balance of this game.’
‘You mean to introduce an unpredicted element,’ said Aurelias. She smiled at him and patted his shoulder. Her touch sent a shiver through him and left a crimson handprint on his robes.
‘Just so,’ she said, and turned away. ‘Bring our Hollow King to us. It has been too long since I saw him.’
Aurelias opened his mouth to object, but Neferata, Queen of Blood, looked over her shoulder at him, and the ivory needles in her smile closed his mouth.
‘It will be done,’ he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John French is the author of several Horus Heresy stories including the novels The Solar War, Mortis, Praetorian of Dorn, Tallarn and Slaves to Darkness, the novella The Crimson Fist, and the audio dramas Dark Compliance, Templar and Warmaster. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written Resurrection, Incarnation and Divination for The Horusian Wars and three tie-in audio dramas – the Scribe Award-winning Agent of the Throne: Blood and Lies, as well as Agent of the Throne: Truth and Dreams and Agent of the Throne: Ashes and Oaths. John has also written the Ahriman series and many short stories.
An extract from The Arkanaut’s Oath.
A poet spoke. This is what he said:
‘Rain pounded. Cold gathered against the tops of the Fourth Air. Bavardia suffered bad weather as a matter of course. For those abroad on the street, atmosphere wrapped meagrely about the body, failing to warm, failing to nourish labouring lungs. Everything was thin there – air, prospects, life, love. Only the rain was thick, thicker than beards, thicker than oaths, thermals thrust up from the lower airs, flattened by the chill into thunderheads that lashed the town with oily, unpleasant waters.
‘Drekki Flynt, Kharadron privateer, came into port. His crew weathered the rain like rocks do, grey, silent and stoic. They were grim. Nobody liked Bavardia.
‘Bavardia was a young place, a lawless place, one of a dozen towns budded off great Bastion, the last remnant of ancient, shattered Achromia. If hope for the future had established Bavardia, despair of the present ruled it. Heirs to a venerable empire, the citizens brought ambitions with them that they could not fulfil. Their dreams were beyond their grasp. A young place with an old soul, Bavardia was filthy as infants are, soiling itself, unsure of its limits, creeping up one crag, then up another, always on the verge of catastrophic tumbles, never settled, uncoordinated, wild with the potential and vulnerabilities of youth. Built upon ruins, reminders of what had been, sad, lost, and yet full of hope. Bavardia! A town of–’
‘Oh put a sock in it, Evtorr Bjarnisson. On and on all the bloody time with the bloody poetry!’ Drekki Flynt said.
The flamboyant ancestor face that fronted Drekki’s helm was known across the Skyshoals. Then there was his drillbill, Trokwi, skulking head down on his shoulder. He usually gave the game away, and if the little automaton was still insufficient a clue, the massive axe Flynt carried on his shoulder was equally unmistakeable. For the truly unperceptive, the ogor plodding through the water in front of him cinched the deal. No one flew with Gord the Ogor but Drekki Flynt! Say Drekki’s name aloud of a night and astound a bar. ‘I’ve fared with Drekki Flynt!’ was a common enough boast. But just then, there was no one to see. No one to hail Drekki or to curse him.
To call the streets ‘streets’ was a generous lie; they were yellow streams pouring from the hills behind the town. The flood cut the earth of the unpaved roads, leaving hollows and rounded stones to take feet by surprise. Tall Gord was untroubled, the water foaming about his tree-trunk legs. For him this was fun. The others struggled on in his wake in varying levels of misery.
‘Do we really need the running saga about how filthy this weather is in this filthy town, when it’s all running down my bloody trouser leg?’ Drekki went on. Rain rattled so hard off his closed helm that he had to shout over the noise.
‘But, captain!’ Evtorr protested. ‘I’m chronicling your latest adventure. It helps to say the words out loud, so I’ll remember.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks. No amount of poet’s polish is going to put a shine on this bilge pit, so stow it in your deepest hold, Evtorr, and keep it there,’ said Drekki.
‘I’m supposed to be Unki-skold,’ protested Evtorr. ‘Couplets and rhymes is what I do, captain.’
‘You’re ship’s signaller, too. Stick to that. You’ve more talent there,’ chided Drekki.
The others in Drekki’s party chuckled. Evtorr’s verses were an acquired taste, one that no one had yet acquired. Evtorr’s helm drooped. He had spent good money having its moustaches inlaid with silver, so all would know he was a poet. Never had his metal mask looked so woebegone.
‘Yes, captain,’ he said.
‘Now now, don’t sulk, write it down later, and torture us with it when it’s finished,’ said Drekki. ‘You never know, you might pen a good one yet.’
‘Doubt it,’ piped up Evrokk Bjarnisson, ship’s helmsduardin, and Evtorr’s brother. ‘He’s been trying all his life. Not got there yet!’
‘He left me out and all,’ grumbled Gord. ‘All stout duardin. I’m stout.’ He slapped his massive ogor’s gut. ‘But I ain’t no duardin!’
He laughed at his joke alone. The crew were too busy avoiding being swept away to find it funny. Being duardin meant being shorter than a human, broad across the shoulder, with powerful, stocky limbs and large hands and feet. Beards. All the usual physiognomy of the children of Grungni. Their form was suited to life underground, as ancient history attested, and surprisingly well fitted to life in the sky, as the more recent Kharadron nations had proven, but rather poor for swimming. Heavy-boned duardin sank and drowned more often than not, and a duardin weighed down by aeronautical equipment most certainly did. It was a fate they were at some risk of just then.
‘Come on, stunties,’ Gord said cheerily. ‘Not that hard. Push on now.’
‘Not that hard!’ said Kedren Grunnsson, ship’s runesmith. A unique appointment on a sky-ship. He was no Kharadron. You could tell by the way he moved. The crew wore aeronautical suits of design so similar they were virtually indistinguishable, but Kedren stuck out. He walked stiffly, as someone who had become accustomed to the gear rather than born to it.
‘Over there! Way up’s on that side,’ said Gord. They waded to the side of the street.
‘Look at this. Ropes!’ Kedren said incredulously, tugging at the lines anchored to the buildings. They were at human height, for it was mostly humans who dwelled in Bavardia. ‘What good are ropes? What about paving? What about drains? What about choosing a better site for their town rather than this piss-filled bathtub!’ He grabbed hold just the same.
‘You’re no fun, ground pounder, too grumbaki by half,’ retorted Adrimm Adrimmsson, who was dragging himself along behind the smith.
‘Is that me you’re calling grumbaki, Adrimm? The grumbliest duardin alive? There’s a cheek!’
‘Now now, my lads,’ said their captain, who had it a bit easier, being safe in the ogor’s lee. ‘We’ll soon be out of the rain and into the dry. Ales all round. Some meat! That much I can promise.’
Adrimm didn’t take the hint to shut up – he rarely did – and continued to moan at Kedren.
‘I could have stayed on the ship,’ said Adrimm.
‘What, and miss all the fun in this sewer?’ said Kedren. ‘That’s the fourth turd that’s slapped into my gut.’
‘I keep telling you aeronautical gear has its benefits, Kedren,’ said Otherek Zhurafon, aether-khemist, and Kedren’s long-standing friend. ‘Sealed in. Turd proof.’ He rapped a knuckle on his chestplate.
‘Proof? Pah! It will take forever to get the stink out,’ said Kedren. ‘I hate this place. I hate this funti weather.’
‘Listen to the oldbeard,’ said Drekki. ‘Evtorr was right about one thing, at least – nobody likes Bavardia.’
Offended, the rain redoubled its efforts to wash them out, and they were forced to cease their grumbling for a while.
‘Keep on, stunties, keep on!’ bellowed Gord. ‘Nearly there.’
The crew reached a set of steps that led off the road to a raised pavement.
‘I suppose we’ll be dry now,’ said ‘Hrunki’ Tordis, who would have had a monopoly on optimism in the crew, were it not for Drekki.
‘Dry? Dry?! All this pavement is is a shoddy substitute for good civic planning,’ said Kedren.
Gord stepped aside to let the duardin up. Buffeted by the flow yet untroubled by it, he shepherded his crewmates with care. A good job too. Although Drekki mounted the steps all right, Gord was obliged to catch Kedren to stop him being whirled away.
