The Last Blade Priest Read online

  “After the betrayal of Stull, we were thorough,” Cilma continued. “Your father confessed freely. Your brother knew of the plot, and as your father’s heir stood to benefit from any preferment. Guilty twice over. But you – both claimed you knew nothing, even when the question was put with considerable force. Your death set no example. Enough blood had been spilt. And you had the makings of a great builder. You were an ideal candidate for mercy.”

  Inar swallowed, and put some words together. If the decision had been made, he did not imagine that there was anything he could say that would save him; but if it had not, he wished to avoid condemning himself. “I will always be grateful to the crown for its mercy,” he said. “I desire only to be its loyal servant.”

  Cilma smiled sourly – more a grimace than anything pleasant. “Hmm. And so you have been. But now the League have come, and they desire your service. Our filthy treaty with them means they can levy anyone they like, but for you they offer riches. Why is that, do you think?”

  Inar could not give an answer. He was too surprised. But he did not get the chance to say anything, as Cilma swooped back across the room, moving fast and silent and certain, his countenance again terrible.

  “Perhaps,” he said, his voice low and venomous, “it is the pay-off of a treacherous little bargain made by your traitor father? Which would make you a beneficiary of treason.”

  Then, as if the effort of this threat had wearied him, Cilma sank onto the stool that stood by the work table. “Get dressed,” he snarled.

  So this was it – the end. Arrest, and death. One always led to the other.

  He could not make himself move. What did one wear to prison? Or to torture? It was an unnatural courtesy to be given the chance to dress.

  Highly unnatural. A faint outline of possibility – too faint to be called hope – had formed.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, daring.

  “I am going nowhere,” Lord Cilma said. “You are going to serve the League.”

  Inar blinked at him. “My lord, I hate the League,” he said, and he was not forcing a show of fealty. The words came easily.

  Cilma shrugged, a distinctly un-Cilma thing to do. “So do we all. But when they are here, they rule over us, and they are here. You’ll need to pack for travel, too, and ready a horse. Warm clothes, furs, and whatever you need for sleeping in the field. You are going to Sojonost.”

  “What?” Inar said. Only just past sunrise, and already the day had exhausted him.

  “The League Merite is coming,” Cilma said. He shot Inar a look, one Inar had never seen before – one of confidence. “An impressive lady, yes? She has impressed our king. Consequently, you are a League levy now, young Inar. You’ll go with them and do as they say.”

  “My lord, this is not…”

  “You listen to me,” Cilma said. He leaned in, his eyes as hard as dungeon stones. “You will be in their service, but you work for me. The builder becomes the spy. You will tell me everything. What are they doing at Sojonost? What are their plans? Will there be another war? Are they moving against Miroline? I want to know every detail you learn, and you will be eager in your learnings, you will ask questions and pursue answers. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Cilma looked away. “Perform well, and there’s a good deal to be gained. The restoration of a few confiscated holdings, perhaps; perhaps even a path to the title that was promised your father…” He turned back, and again the severity was there. “If, however, I detect disloyalty, either to the crown or to me personally, I may decide that I showed too much leniency when dealing with your father’s treason. Do you understand?”

  “My lord.” The words all made sense to Inar, yes. But he understood nothing.

  The morning had passed in a storm of preparation. Inar had two servants, an elderly couple who were the last remnant of his father’s household. He tried to reassure them that he was only going to Sojonost, and that he would be back soon, but they were unwilling to meet his eye, and clearly expected not to see him again. The lingering presence of Lord Cilma, executioner of their previous employer, did not help. It was the lord chancellor who gave most of the orders, with Inar hardly knowing what to say.

  Later, waiting on the Stull road for the League to come, Inar felt giddy from the speed of events. Lord Cilma had insisted that they meet the League with some ceremony, so he and his men had stayed in attendance, and Inar wore his best cape. They made a handsome group, and Inar even felt a little proud of the kingdom and of himself. But most of the prestige emanated from Cilma, astride a magnificent black charger, straight-backed and wrapped in robes and black furs like a column of smoke. To either side were the armoured guards, one of whom bore the royal standard, which turned and folded on itself in the light spring breeze.

  There was no sign of the League. They were organisers, Inar thought, devoted to clocks and reckoning, trying to put all the world in their ledgers. He had expected them to be early. But they were not. In the distance, smoke rose among the black spires of Stull, and Inar could make out the neat line of towers that marked the line of the new fortifications, and the flat-topped pyramid of the shiel. Behind was the tower of the citadel, on the scarp that formed the city’s northern boundary. Nearer at hand, between the city and their waiting-place, was the akouy shiel, where the dead were united with heaven, and around it wheeled the black specks of birds.

  “Eyes open, ears open, remember,” Cilma said.

  “Yes, my lord,” Inar said obediently. “But how should I report to you?”

  “Where are all our men?” Cilma replied. “Levied by the League, that’s where. They are using Mishigo and Oriri labourers and mercenaries. There are loyal men at Sojonost, they will contact you.”

  “If you already have loyal men at Sojonost, why do you need me to spy?”

  “Besides your obvious wish to serve your king and prove your fealty?” Cilma said, with a note of danger. “Because, young Inar, this woman, this merite, is a big beast. One of the biggest, in the top half-dozen or so people in their whole government. And you’ll be working for her directly, not digging holes. That’s why. Goff! That is a royal standard, not a stick for knocking apples out of trees! Upright and steady, you imbecile!”

  Few other travellers used the road while they waited – a small straggling group of old peasant women, who kept their heads down and steered a wide course around Cilma’s men; a young shaven-headed man who might have been taken for the cutpurse if he had not been wearing the black robe of an acolyte of the Mountain; and an old man steering an empty horse and cart away from the city. Of the fields on either side of the road, maybe one in four had been tended recently. The rest were choked with two summers of overgrown neglect, made brown and matted by the winter, now returning to tangled, useless life. Dry stone walls tipped into the filling ditches. A brick chimney stack rose from the weeds – the house it had warmed had collapsed or burned. Only the old worked the farms – the young men were in the mines and quarries, paying the League’s price for peace, or had been levied. Rightly, this road should be busy with farmers and merchants, heading south to Miroline and west to the League, and pilgrims heading towards the pass – but there was no one using it now, bar one underfed horse and its scruffy-looking rider.

  They were familiar, that horse and rider. Inar squinted at them at they drew closer.

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes,” Cilma said, amused. “The League advised that you take an attendant, and really only one man was suited to the job.”

  Inar stared at Cilma. Was he capable of pranks? He did not seem the sort. But an inscrutable joke was clearly being played.

  “Only one man?!” Inar asked, still unable to believe his eyes. “I have my own servants…”

  “Too old, wouldn’t you say, for a perilous journey into the mountains?”

  “Falde…”

  “Falde is needed here, completing your work, builder.”

  “Any number of men…”

  “All needed. But I found I could spare one.”

  “Good morning!” Lott cried from the road.

  The League approached with the same majesty as they had the day before, blue pennant fluttering, the merite Anzola leading the party beside a League knight standard-bearer. Behind her were the older man and the quiet, sickly girl. The remaining three League-knights brought up the rear. Lord Cilma had been wise – if Inar had been on his own, waiting at the side of the road for this stately party, he would have felt shabby indeed. Even worse if Lott had been with him, slumped in his saddle, picking at his filthy nails.

  The chancellor placed Inar in the service of Anzola with no more than a dozen words of basic courtesy. Then he turned and spurred his stallion back towards Stull, soldiers thundering behind him, one gripping the royal standard with white knuckles.

  2

  ANTON

  Anton wondered if he was sufficiently terrifying. What more could he do to strike fear? The robes and the mask did not leave much scope for acting. Perhaps there was a way of walking, or something he could do with his arms or his hands. But he feared that trying to stride or prowl like a monster would make him look more like one of the absurd ribbon-strewn players who went from village to village earning coins by scaring children. Maybe that was fitting – maybe that was his purpose, to be a player and play the monster. Better than being the monster.

  The trouble was that he had no practice at being a monster, and for that he was glad. He did not particularly want to see, through the eye-slits of his mask, the visitors made afraid by the sight of him. But the alternatives were little better. Curiosity he could tolerate. What he dreaded was pity. A born monster, in an age that had no need of them.

  He sighed and flexed his shoulders. T
hey had been waiting a while. Benches at the sides of the antechamber provided for the older altzans, but there was no room for him and Elecy, the two anomalous youths. It would be disrespectful to sit with Ving, Dionny and the others on the same narrow seat – and of course there was no question of sitting on the other side of the room. So they stood in a corner. It was a high-ceilinged, long room, with a large double door at each end, and it had been built for precisely this purpose: a place for altzans to wait, discreetly, before the beginning of a ritual. Nearby, perhaps beneath their feet, there were other, smaller chambers, less grand in their materials and proportions, where the ritual’s other participants would wait. Rooms with iron doors and guards. Not today. The temple itself was very ancient, from long before the age of Miroline, its central space lined by columns built of vast cubes of brown stone. Its flagstone floor had been worn down by generations of human feet, and the stone steps at the entrance sagged like melted butter. But here in the antechamber, many fewer had trod. The floor was sea-green Mirolinian marble and, combined with the pale light that came from small, high windows, it was like waiting in a water cistern. Four braziers stood in the corners, but only two were lit.

  The mask was heavy, its sharp beak pulling his head forward, and the leather straps dug into Anton’s scalp and the back of his neck. Despite the chill, sweat and his hot breath made his face slick. There was no sign that they were needed yet, so he lifted the mask and wiped his brow and neck with the sleeve of his robe, enjoying the relief of the cool air.

  Elecy turned to him. The beaks did have an unnerving effect, Anton had to admit. It was like being noticed by a predator.

  “You should not remove your mask,” she said in a whisper.

  Anton could not see her face, but he could picture her scowl.

  “We can do as we please,” he replied softly.

  “I did not say could not,” Elecy said, straightening. “I said should not.”

  “You must be uncomfortable. Lift your mask a moment. We have time.”

  The beak swung away, and the eyes that Anton had seen glittering through their slits were lost in shadow. “I am perfectly comfortable.”

  Yes, that made sense.

  The tall door nearest Anton and Elecy opened with a sharp crack, ancient wood on under-used hinges. In came altzan Dreyff, Ramnie’s secretary, a man who needed no lessons in striking fear with his stride. He did not acknowledge Anton, or anyone on that side of the chamber – instead he went directly to the altzan-al and bent to whisper in the old man’s ear. Ramnie nodded, and mouthed a reply.

  Dreyff drew himself to his full height, dwarfing the ancient priests around him – only Anton was taller, and by only a little. He acknowledged his colleagues, and then turned to address the other side of the chamber, where Ving and his followers sat and Anton and Elecy stood.

  “The delegations have assembled,” he said. “Make ready.”

  He spoke with icy formality, but without courtesy or deference, despite the seniority of the priests seated before him. Anton could sense Ving’s indignation surging, as clear as if a gong had been struck. Dreyff displayed not the slightest emotion of any kind, but his eyes flicked for the tiniest moment to regard Anton. Not Anton and Elecy, who were generally treated as an indivisible legion, but just Anton. The mask – Anton hurriedly pulled it back over his face.

  Acolytes rushed into the chamber, one to each altzan, and began to fuss about, helping the elderly to their feet, adjusting robes, taking away anything not needed in the ceremony. The novice assigned to Anton, a boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen, kept his head bowed as he tucked and arranged Anton’s robe, preferring to contort himself than to look up at the mask or catch a glimpse of the eyes that lay behind it. Anton wondered if there was anything he could say or do that might put the lad at ease, but nothing came to mind. No one else was speaking – it did not seem to be an appropriate moment for pleasantries or attempts at wit. “Thank you,” Anton said when the youth was finished, but he had not stopped to hear. The doors at the far end of the antechamber had opened, and from beyond came the gentle sound of hundreds of people gathered in silence.

  The altzans entered first, Ramnie at their head. The factional divide that had dictated their seats in the waiting-place was now invisible – their order reflected only their rank within the leadership of the Tzanate. They took up positions in front of the altar, facing a line of Zealot soldiery. Behind those sentinels stood… many hundreds more tzans and altzans. The temple was filled with priests, priests from every part of the world where the Mountain was worshipped.

  Anton and Elecy entered last. They alone wore robes of white, and they alone took up positions behind the altar. All the other altzans wore robes of black and grey, although at a glance Anton saw dozens of variations of region, rite and rank. Some of the vestments were little more than rags, stained from the road, perhaps always stained. Others were inky black silk, accented with threads of silver, draped over well-fed bellies.

  Around them, the interior of the temple was a rainbow of fabric. Normally this vast space would be open to the sky, but prayer-printed banners in multiple colours had been draped across the peristyle, giving shelter from the winds that whipped across the plateau and trapping the thick clouds of incense that poured from burners in niches. Standards were hung between the columns, sighing and snapping against their cords. And behind the altar was a single vast sheet of crimson, painted with a human heart, superimposed on a stylised outline of the Mountain. All around was colourful movement, as if the ancient, massive masonry was the living breathing thing, and the priests within the stone statues. The heart that dominated them all appeared to beat, caught like a sail by the mistral across the lake.

  Why hide the lake, and the Mountain, like that, Anton wondered? The whole high temple had been built to align with Craithe, so that pilgrims would see the object of their journey rising above the azure waters of Hleng, directly behind the altar of the Gift. It was strange – impious, even – to see that it had been hidden behind a curtain.

  Perhaps it was this puzzle that distracted him, and caused him to do what he did. He simply forgot himself, forgot where he was, what he was doing, who he was supposed to be. As he and Elecy approached the altar, he had spotted an imperfection in its surface. He reached out a hand and ran his fingertips along the smooth, hard stone, and found it: a mark made by the point of a knife.

  The temple held its breath. Even the canvas heart behind him missed a beat. Every eye was on his unrobed hand, its fingers trailing along the altar like a man brushing dust from a bookshelf. On the killing slab.

  Trying to avoid unseemly hurry, Anton withdrew his hand and wrapped it once again in the robe.

  Not everyone had seen – fortunately, Ramnie, Ving and the others stood with their backs to Anton and Elecy, and while they undoubtedly detected the change in atmosphere, decorum forbade them from turning to see the cause. The moment passed, and eased. The great heart beat again.

  A mark made by the point of a knife. It would not be the only one, but it was more recent than most. Anton wondered if it had been made the first time he had stood in this space, the day he had seen a man killed here. Then, he had been standing on the other side of the altar, but only a yard away, no distance. Their eyes had met, wide with terror. What had the man thought, in those final moments? He was frightened, of course – but did he believe himself to be important? To be useful? Did he think his death was in the service of a greater purpose? Or was it just another futile, violent incident in a life filled with futility and violence? Which was better?

  Or – he had seen Anton and Elecy – had he died thinking, Why are there children here?

  Elecy had seen him touch the altar. She stood impossibly still, and he wondered what she was thinking. Memories of that first time? It was all so clear – the falling blade, the harsh movements of Vertzan and Giftmeat, the gouts of red against pure white, the stink of slaughter, the beating of wings – he could not turn away, because he was held, and they would know if he closed his eyes, so he raised them instead and tried to look at the Mountain itself, thinking this might appear suitably pious. And he asked the Mountain, is this truly what you want?