Page 11

The Ancient Past

T he silence in Theron’s throne room was thick enough to choke a man. The king of Aureum could be forgiven for hoping the Viridian merchant currently prostrated before him would expire from the force of his displeasure. Having the temerity to arrive without the shipments of grain that his treasury had already paid for in full was an excellent way to ensure one died a painful death. The moment the merchant crossed The Colonnades Of The Colossus without it, he’d made himself an enemy of the kingdom. That the scum had travelled along the winding trade road through the canyons all the way to Altanus just to rub it in his face was an insult not to be borne.

“Repeat yourself.”

The thunderous tone of his voice would leave no doubt in the mind of the merchant what the cost of displeasing him would be. It echoed in the cavernous throne room, bouncing off the sunstone mosaic floors, wrapping around thick columns carved with the painted likenesses of heroic kings and queens long past. The echo settled in the bones of his silent courtiers, all of them watching and waiting for a single misstep in order to pounce—either on him for a perceived failing, or on the merchant to curry his favour.

“The cost of the food has increased, Your Majesty. I must ask that you pay the full price before delivery.”

To the man’s credit, his tone was remarkably even.

And that simply wouldn’t do.

Theron leaned forward on his throne, his deep blue and gold attire accentuating the crimson hue of his long hair. Gold-tooled leather boots had been polished enough to reflect the sunlight. Loose pants of the finest wool dyed dark blue with gold embroidery peeked out beneath a lengthy, shimmering gold tunic with sapphires sparkling in the swirling white patterns. All this cinched with a belt tooled with gold and inlaid with jewels. His crown today was relaxed—an oversight. A gold and sapphire headband cut across his temple, matching the earrings and thickly braided necklace he’d selected as his courtly battle attire. Gold cuffs and rings completed the look. At court, one could not afford to look weak or humble. While the nobles and courtiers in attendance were ostensibly his allies, enough misfortune had already beset his kingdom to make his position tenuous. Placing a hand on his knee and leaning forward, Theron chose his next words carefully.

“The problem before us is one of honour.” Theron stood, stepping down from his dais, every movement calculated to instil fear, to mimic the movements of predators. He held out his hand to his sword bearer, his cousin, who placed the sheathed weapon in his hand. “When a person signs a contract or swears upon their name that something will be done, and then fails to follow through, they are punished and shunned for being without honour. Only a fool would agree to treat with a person who has tarnished themselves in such a way. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Your Majesty, I cannot—”

“You signed a contract. You were paid. Are you telling me that you are a man without honour?”

Theron began pulling his sword from its scabbard. The punishment for such treachery was traditionally whatever the king decided. And kings could not afford to be merciful. His word was law. For now.

“No! No, Your Majesty!”

“Then have you simply misplaced the promised goods?” he asked, the click of his blade falling back into its scabbard echoing in the silent throne room.

The merchant swallowed, weighing the worth of his life. He would die here and now if he failed to produce the shipment. But was the punishment for failure back in Viridis worse than a swift beheading? Though he was intrigued as to what the Viridians had over the man, the shipment of grain was of much greater value than the intelligence. After all, hungry people couldn’t eat secrets.

“Y-yes, Your Majesty. Please forgive me. In my embarrassment, I have misspoken,” the merchant said, trembling, sweat rolling down his neck and into the finely embroidered himation he wore. Perhaps it was not out of fear, but unfounded confidence that he’d come here without the goods. Had he been told that Aureum was weak, desperate? Enough for a simple merchant to harass and insult a king?

“I see. And where was it you misplaced the shipment?” Theron asked, his smile not reaching his eyes.

But his cruel smile was not for the prostrated merchant—it was for the courtiers who thought Theron was weak. Here, everything was a performance, and only the best actor was permitted to walk away with both their power and their head intact.

“On the border, at the end of the Queen’s Road, Your Majesty.”

“How foolish. Have no fear, you will be escorted back to your wayward goods and my people will take possession of them from there.”

“You are most generous, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, I am. Had I not sought clarity, I might have had to send you back in pieces. My honour would have demanded no less. See that you don’t put me in such a position again.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

“General Canthus, see our guest back to the border and find the shipment. And if he proves to be without honour, then do what must be done.”

His general bowed deeply, the noontime sun glinting off the bronze of his cuirass. He was a man of honour and could be trusted not to steal or tamper with the shipment. Canthus was also surprisingly content for a man who wielded as much power as he did. He made a fine ally, the same as all those in his inner circle. After all, Theron never trusted anyone whose weakness he didn’t control.

“With pleasure, Your Majesty.”

Canthus grabbed the merchant by his silks and dragged him from the throne room.

Court had begun with the first rays of dawn, and Theron had seen to dozens of cases brought before him for judgment. Farmers fighting over land and cattle, artisans complaining of substandard materials sold to them by merchants who fought over taxes and market stall placements, to say nothing of the nobles with their endless boundary and inheritance disputes. Now that the sun was high in the sky, he had other matters to attend to.

Theron nodded to his cousin, Batea, a woman sharing the rich, ochre brown skin and dark red hair of their royal lineage. But where her eyes were a brown bordering on black, his were gold.

“Court has concluded for the day,” she announced, her voice carrying to every corner of the great hall.

As one, all those still present knelt or prostrated themselves on the sunstone mosaic floors and chanted, “Triad preserve the sun of Aureum.”

“Your wishes have been heard. Go with the sun’s favour,” Theron replied.

As petitioners and courtiers alike filed out of the hall, Theron turned to Batea.

“Batea, with me.”

“It would be my pleasure, Your Majesty.”

“Polydorus,” Theron said, turning to his most trusted advisor, a fastidiously dressed, lean man with a streak of silver in his black hair. “Ensure any who were expecting that grain today are given some from the royal stores.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” Polydorus bowed and went to his task.

His cousin followed him from the throne room to the balcony facing the Dragon’s Spine Mountains. Once alone, she sighed, running a hand through her long, burgundy strands.

“The Viridians grow bolder by the day.”

“The Viridian high priestess certainly does,” Theron snorted.

Batea clicked her tongue, disgusted. Neither of them held any love for the grasping Viridians, or their High Priestess Orithyia XI, the true power behind the Viridian throne.

“Then Queen Flora is worth less than the silks she wears. That merchant wore her colours, her royal silks, and bore her official seal. She’ll have neither power nor peace for much longer if that’s how she conducts her affairs.”

Theron grunted in approval. While the merchant had been yet another insult the fool queen had sent his way, it was just that—a petty insult from a petulant queen. The real danger lay elsewhere. Any monarch who bowed to the whims of the temples rather than balancing them was unworthy of their crown. It was a pity Flora had allowed such a detestably ambitious high priestess to take the helm of the temple of Knowledge and seat herself at the queen’s right side. No doubt the wretched temple bitch had already poisoned the minds of Viridis, just as she was poisoning the other realms.

Just as she was poisoning his lands.

Orithyia would pay dearly for her sins. And part of the comeuppance would come sooner rather than later. He smiled, spotting the ugly spire atop the Dragon’s Spine Mountain range, jutting out from the snow like a bone through bloodless flesh. Orithyia could lie about how the spire was in honour of Knowledge, a place to study the mountains, built without politics or scheming in mind, but he knew better.

It had been paid for with Viridian gold and built by Viridian clerics. And it was on his mountains.

The moment it had begun blighting his view, it had begun blighting his lands, drying up the rivers, polluting the waters that remained, and inducing sickness and disease amongst the animals, crops and farmers. Orithyia had angered the spirits with her spire, and had the temerity to blame him for the consequences. One would almost think she was one of the dualists she and her queen so ruthlessly persecuted, given how easily falsehoods fell from her lips.

As a result, the nobles of Aureum had begun eyeing Theron like a lamed stag, ripe for slaughter. For a king’s most sacred duty was appeasing the spirits and bringing plenty and fertility to the land through the magical connections bestowed upon him by the crown. A king who failed to do so was either too weak to rule without a powerful queen at his side, or too weak to rule at all. The vultures were circling—all because of that bitch high priestess.

“Do we have confirmation that the high priestess has received our message?”

“The birds delivered word of it just this morning.” Batea nodded.

“Excellent.”

Theron had warned Orithyia to keep her spires in her own territory. But by the time she’d come to him with the proposal, it was already too late to stop her. Whatever she had over the monarchs of Niveum, Gilvus, and Roseum, it was enough that the pressure proved impossible to ignore. While he often employed such a tactic to keep his own people in line, he was enough of a hypocrite to despise her for doing the same. She’d won that round, but she would lose this one.

“Do you know what I told her?”

“No.”

“That any structure built on lies is bound to crumble.”

Batea’s eyes lit up, a smile cracking her impressively severe facade.

“You didn’t.”

“I did.” He grinned back. “And I should be made a prophet any moment now.”

As if on cue, a dark fissure ran up the length of the spire. The ominous, thundering crack met their ears a moment later. Gravity, aided by the genius of some of Aureum’s best engineers, finished it off. Collapsing in on itself and showering the surrounding area in rubble, a cloud of snow, dirt and debris shrouded the spire’s newly anointed graveyard.

“And what of the survivors?”

“Conveniently unrecoverable. Those who refused to talk were left as bodies to be found. The rest are on their way to the dungeons. Take your most trusted soldiers and make sure everyone knows you’re searching the rubble for survivors. The spire was looted in the initial assault, but if you find anything interesting, bring it back. Either way, we’ll have proof of Orithyia’s chicanery. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find some new bit of sinister magic she’s concocted to use against her.”

“And if neither the prisoners, loot, nor the rubble proves fruitful?”

“Then at the very least we’ll have cured the source of the blight and restored the rivers. My pleas to the spirits and tangible gods might finally be heard.”

Batea hummed, pensive as the city roused to the sight of the fallen spire.

“There’s always some shadowy trick with the high priestess. Schemes within schemes. Are you certain you know which games she’s playing?”

Theron scoffed.

“You don’t trust your cousin?”

“I trust you’re as ruthless as you ought to be, but you’re still a king, and you have honour. The woman we’re fighting is shameless, bold, grasping, and has some sway over the monarchs of the other realms. She has Viridis at her beck and call. I wonder if it would be simpler to stick a dagger in her heart and be done with it.”

“And risk the wrath of a goddess?”

The goddess, Knowledge, had chosen the vile woman to serve Her, and given her divine magic and protection. No matter her sins, only the other two high priestesses, or those chosen by the goddesses, the avatars, could safely dispose of Orithyia.

“Better to risk a few souls than to bend the knee to Viridis—to Orithyia.”

“When we have our proof, either through testimonies, magical objects, or the sudden end to the blight, we’ll have enough to make the High Priestesses Myrina and Nerio act. I cannot risk a war—and the wrath of a goddess—when our people have been hungry for the better part of a year.”

The blight had killed enough crops that his people ate only because of the previous year’s surplus, but even that was dangerously low. Orithyia’s foul magic had devastated the grain-producing region south of the Dragon’s Spine Mountain lake and along its rivers. Even the water in the capital, Altanus, was beginning to sicken the people here. She’d angered the spirits of the land and the tangible gods, and now Aureum suffered.

“That is why we should have declared war the moment that tower was built in our mountains!”

Theron pinched the bridge of his nose. Triad’s tits, they’d had this fight often enough he could recite it from memory. But from the fire in Batea’s eyes, she wouldn’t let it go, even now.

“We would have walked right into her trap. Made ourselves the enemy of the realms, a common foe to unite against. She outplayed us.”

“She continues to outplay us! You think that tower will be the end of it? Niveum has stalled marriage talks since the blight began. Our kingdoms were the closest they’ve ever been to uniting, and now it’s as good as called off. Gilvus won’t even reply to our messages for my marriage talks with the princess, and Roseum is content to wait and watch from behind the Giant’s Jawbone. We should have marched on Viridis while our granaries were full.”

The loss of the Nivean princess had been a bitter thing to swallow. That alliance would have given Aureum access to the crops it needed to feed its growing population in return for ores that Niveum sorely lacked. It would have been enough to stop Orithyia in her tracks. Fitting, then, that she’d perched her bloody spire in the mountains that separated their kingdoms, no doubt using the blight she’d cast on Aureum to frighten the Nivean king into compliance.

“My plan will work.”

It had to work. The other high priestesses weren’t blind. They knew Orithyia’s nature, they tolerated her, but had no real love for her. They even abided by the unwritten rule that the temples were not to usurp the power of monarchs, unlike Orithyia, who was using her power to bolster the land-grabbing ambitions of Viridis’ queen. If he gave Myrina and Nerio all the evidence, they would strike Orithyia down.

“And if it doesn’t?” Batea pressed.

“Then, and only then, will we discuss more drastic steps.”

While he couldn’t touch Orithyia for fear of divine wrath, Flora was another matter. No goddess backed her. Only through her wild magic had she attained her crown, the same as the rest of the Trisian monarchs. And when it came to fearsome magic, Theron could not be defeated—not even by a queen who proclaimed her power to paralyse her foes on the battlefield.

“You had best hope your plan works—and quickly. We’re reaching the point at which our reserves won’t be able to sustain an army on the march.”

Theron smiled. If all else failed, they had one thing neither the temples nor Viridis possessed.

“You mean your pets .”

Batea returned the grin, all mischief and bloodthirst.

“Yes, well, every woman needs a hobby.”

More than hobby, it was her magic. Batea could enter the Tapestry to weave new creatures into being from those that already existed. It was a pity she could not alter fate, or kill from a distance, as some with her brand of wild magic were capable of. It was a pity that so few of them felt safe enough to live openly—after all, Viridis and its spies assassinated any they could find. Batea had survived because she was a king’s cousin and the most bloodthirsty royal relation in all of Trisia. And he let her do whatever she pleased to all those who tried to harm her. Theron shook his head.

“Go, see what you can find in the rubble.”

Batea frowned. No doubt she had more to say on the subject of an all-out war. But they were wasting time. Any longer, and it might not appear that he’d rushed to send his best to save the doomed clerics in the spire.

“One of these days you’ll wish you’d declared war,” she harrumphed, gaze drifting to the rubble in the mountains. “If I must go, then I’m taking my pets .”

Theron returned the frown. The more those damned creatures moved, the hungrier they became. The more they ate, the bigger they got. Soon, they would be unmanageable. Sometimes he thought Batea only desired war so her precious beasts would have more to eat. Though if they devoured that vile high priestess and her pet queen too, he would cease nagging her about them.

“If you must.”

Theron spared one more look for the scene of devastation in the mountains, his heart swelling in triumph. Orithyia had not expected him to demolish her ugly spire. So it would be all the sweeter when he forced her clerics to testify against her, to admit to her schemes. He turned from the sight.

“Where are you heading? Aren’t you going to watch your heroic cousin ride to the rescue?”

Theron snorted.

“No, your ego is big enough already. First, I’m going to heal my people. Then, I’m going to loosen the lips of some Viridian scum.”

“I don’t know why you bother. Beggars don’t bestow crowns,” Batea scoffed.

“No, but riots have been known to topple even the most fearsome kings,” Theron retorted.

Batea’s laughter chased him all the way to the outer courtyard, where the neediest of his kingdom had been brought. People lay on tarps, or in the arms of their loved ones, shaded by the fragrant orange trees. There were more who begged for succour these days, almost as many as when waves of torchlight fever coincided with another plague or earthquake. Pyres already burned through the night in the countryside due to the blight tainting the waters. He supposed he should be more worried for a time when there was no one left to light them.

Theron drew on his wild magic, cloaking the whole of the courtyard in its golden shimmer. He needn’t be quite so flashy with his magic, but this was the spectacle they had been summoned to witness. Broken bones, festering wounds, and maladies of all kinds were banished. He was the most powerful healer in the land, after all. But not everyone here could be healed permanently. Not all illnesses could be conquered by coaxing the body to repair itself. For those, he healed as much as he could. Others were too far gone, his magic recoiling as Death dyed the fibres of their threads a muddy red. All he could do for them was to ease their suffering, severing the link between their pain and the sensation of it.

“Triad preserve the sun of Aureum!”

The weepy, ecstatic exclamation met every success of his healing magic. The people here could have been treated by his legion of royal healers, but his aides had selected those among them who had some measure of influence or eloquence or were simply known as talkative or well-liked. These would be the people to spread tales of his benevolence and generosity. And if some of the more ambitious nobles thought to topple him, he hoped they would also be the first to riot in his defence.

“Your wishes have been heard. Go with the sun’s favour,” Theron replied by rote, dismissing each in turn, until the whole of the courtyard was empty.

By the time he was finished, the afternoon was nearly over. Duty done, his public image secure, he dismissed his guards and attendants.

Now the real fun began.

The prisoners should be secure, the first round of questioning commencing. He could hardly contain his excitement. Orithyia’s schemes were soon to be revealed. He hoped he would get to watch her execution. Maybe the high priestesses Myrina and Nerio would even appoint an avatar to strike the killing blow.

Humming a jaunty tune, Theron made his way through the palace, descending hidden stairwells that led to the dungeons. As he stepped further into darkness interrupted only by the odd oil lamp, the echoes of distant screams met his ears. His people were already hard at work, it seemed. But the closer he got, the more all-consuming the shrieks became. Theron hurried his steps as the cries began petering out, the stench of burnt hair and flesh reaching his nose.

Something was wrong.

When he stepped into the underground prison, the sight that greeted him was not of Viridian clerics in chains, spilling their guts both figuratively and literally. Instead, dismembered, blackened arms hung from red-hot chains. Charred corpses, piled atop one another, reached for freedom through melting prison bars. Pliers, knives, whips and more lay scattered about. The fire had burned so hot that there was no way to tell friend from foe. The smoke and the stench had Theron’s eyes watering as he searched for survivors.

“Majesty…”

Theron peered through the thick gloom. One of his men still lived—barely. He raced to the man’s side, lay his hands atop him, and dug deep for the magic in his blood. He coaxed it out, wrapping it around the injured man, healing him.

“How did this happen?”

“Magic…device…acolyte’s pocket.”

“And what of the other items secured from the spire?”

His magic dissipated, recoiling from the man’s body. He was too near death to save. Theron grimaced, pulling on a different power. If he could not save him, then he could take away the pain.

“Damaged…” the man whispered, breathing his last.

Theron raced from the corpse down the hall to the deepest part of the treasury. Smoke billowed out of the room in which he’d ordered the contents of the spire placed. Only the ashes of burnt scrolls remained of the precious documents he’d stolen. Every stone object had fractured into a thousand pieces and the metal devices had melted, their arcane symbols warped beyond recognition. He slammed the door shut and roared. Whatever device the acolyte had activated, it had destroyed his proof.

The high priestess had outplayed Theron once again.