A Shout for the Dead (9 page)

'You can't dismiss this,' said Harban. 'If we act now, we can stop him before it is too late.'

'For what?' The Advocate was smiling. 'Beyond playing straight into Felice Koroyan's hands, I don't think we have a problem here, do we? I mean, barring a desire to see the little bastard caught and burned.'

'You have no idea what he will be capable of doing,' said Harban. 'He must be stopped and destroyed.'

'There we agree,' said Ossacer.

'Ossie!' said Mirron.

'He will wreck everything we are trying to do,' said Ossacer. 'I said it in the palace and I'll say it again now. We find him, we kill him.'

Mirron sat back, looking at him askance. 'You don't mean that, Ossie. You can't.'

'You cannot cage him,' said Ossacer quietly. 'There is no other choice.'

Jhered had moved to stand behind Mirron and his hand was on her shoulder.

'You all agree with him, don't you?' she said.

When she was younger, she would have cried. Now her overwhelming emotion was one of disappointment. Arducius could see it in her energy map.

'Can you see an alternative?' he asked.

'Yes,' she said. 'We catch him and put him on trial. That's the Conquord way. If he's guilty, he dies. If not, he goes free.' 'We already know he is guilty,' said Ossacer.

'Do we really?' said Mirron. 'How clever of you to be able to decide guilt based on hearsay and a single witness.'

'He murdered Appros Menas and he raped you,' snapped Ossacer. 'What more do we need?'

'That was ten years ago.' Mirron's voice rose a notch.

'Time makes no difference,' said Ossacer. 'It was only our misplaced loyalty to him that left him alive. We can't repeat the mistake.'

'And what do I tell my son when he asks about his father? That we found Gorian and killed him and that one of the crimes we condemned him for resulted in Kessian's own birth?'

'Mirron, we all love your son,' said Arducius. 'But it has been a long time since we thought of Gorian as his father. And as Kessian is subject to Ascendancy rules, you will never tell him who his father was. It has always been the way.'

'And I've never understood it,' said Mirron. 'What possible harm can it do?'

'Oh come on, Mirron. Early Ascendancy history is littered with the deaths of young talents at the hands of their fathers. That is why the decision was taken to keep fathers from knowing the identities of their children.'

'Mirron,' said Herine. 'Too many men fear what they create. And think, if those same men had talents that have gone only to see their children achieve what they cannot.'

'It doesn't matter if it's fair or not,' said Arducius. 'All we need to know is that there were no more deaths after the rule was made. Fathers have to deal with it, children have to understand it. We all did. And Ossie and I do not know who our children are, do we? It hurts but we understand. It is why we do not teach the strand potential where our children might be. We don't know if they have talent and are in the classroom, or are without talent and back in Westfallen. Kessian can be treated no differently.'

'All right, all right,' said Mirron, both hands in the air. 'It doesn't change the fact that what we are planning to do is wrong.'

'Give us a solution that doesn't involve bringing his menace into my city and I'll think about it,' said Herine. 'Until then, I move with the majority. Paul, sorry but I don't think I can let you retire just yet. I need the ears and eyes of every member of the levium in the hunt. And there is no one I trust more to get this job done.'

But Jhered wasn't really paying her any attention.

'Are you all right, Harban?' he asked.

Arducius looked along the seats to the Karku. Harban was staring at Mirron. His eyes were wide and the tremble was back but this time over much more than his hands.

'Gorian has a son? Your son?' he managed.

Mirron nodded.

'Then he must also be destroyed,' said Harban. A moment's silence.

'You lay one finger on him and I will melt your skull,' said Mirron.

Arducius winced, Ossacer gasped at the weight of her fury through the energy lines.

'He cannot be allowed to join with Gorian. He cannot be allowed to develop to maturity,' said Harban, the desperation of hideous knowledge bringing sweat to his brow. 'The prophecy—'

The Chancellery dissolved into shouts and threats. The Ascendants were on their feet. Harban was protesting his truth. Herine remained in her seat.

'Quiet!'

Jhered's voice bounced from the walls and shuddered through everyone in the room.

'I feel like I've stepped back ten years,' he continued. 'And you are doing it in the presence of my Advocate. You will have more control, do I make myself clear?'

Silence. Nodding.

'Mirron, no one is going to kill your son. He is in the safest place in the Conquord. Untouchable. Harban, I am speechless. What sort of statement was that? We all understand you're scared but that sort of outburst is unacceptable.'

Arducius could see that Harban was unrepentant. He stood up and immediately Jhered motioned to two guards.

'See him to his rooms. See he doesn't leave them without you.'

'Yes, Lord Jhered.'

'I will not kill him,' said Harban. 'That is for you. But you do not understand what you face, and every day you delay he gets stronger. And think on this too. We have been misreading the prophecy for hundreds of years. In Kark our best scholars have always assumed that the "spawn" of the Ascendant is a reference to the dead he controls. But it isn't, is it?

'

Chapter Seven

859th cycle of God, 5th day of
Genasrise

Mirron stood at the door to Kessian's room at the end of that day. Her beautiful son was sleeping peacefully. She had left the Chancellery in Harban's footsteps and there were guards on her rooms and patrolling the gardens beneath her balconies. Jhered had seen to that but even so, she was scared.

'No one will harm you while I live,' she whispered.
‘I
will never leave your side.'

Both Arducius and Ossacer had offered to stay with her through the night but she had locked the doors on everyone, determined to face her fear alone and try not to let any change affect her son. She was lucky he wasn't attuned enough to read her true emotions through her energy map but through the afternoon, she had seen him watching her closely. More than once, it was his hand laid on her to provide comfort. He didn't say anything, or ask any questions but it wouldn't last.

'What will I tell you, because it cannot be the whole truth?'

Mirron walked across to the shutters in Kessian's room and checked them again. They were strong and thick against the dusas chill that swept up the hill every year and they covered beautiful stained glass windows that must have cost a small fortune. She leaned over and kissed Kessian's forehead.

'Good night, darling,' she said.

She walked out of his room and closed the single door. Across a hall the doors to her reception and bedrooms both stood open. She didn't approach either of them. In the hall was a recliner stacked with cushions and set with blankets. It faced Kessian's door and was about as far as she could bear to be from him this night. The recliner looked comfortable but it hardly mattered. Mirron couldn't imagine sleep.

She sat down, picked up some papers she was marking. At least just this once, the tedium of the task wouldn't send her to sleep.

Mirron awoke to find lantern lights still burning away at the night. She had no idea what time it was but felt calmer and a little refreshed. The marking papers were scattered across the white marble floor, one or two having travelled almost to Kessian's door over the smooth surface. She felt a breeze on her face coming from her bedroom and shook her head.

'Idiot,' she said.

She pushed herself upright and kneaded the back of her neck where she'd slept at an angle. The palace was quiet. Mirron padded on bare feet to Kessian's door, feeling the chill of the marble on her soles. She cracked his door quietly and looked in on him, pale light from the hallway splashing across his head. Lost to sleep, he lay with his arms flung out and his head cocked to one side.

She smiled and closed the door once more, deciding she really ought to take a leaf out of his book. Guards on the doors and in the gardens, latched shutters. The Omniscient-protect-her, the Ocenii squadron would have a job getting in here, let alone one scared man of Kark.

'Right.'

Mirron walked into her bedroom and felt the cold inside through her stola. She pulled the window closed and latched the shutters. The bed looked very tempting. Lavender bags scented the pillows and the sheets were fresh and crisp. But now she was here it felt just that little bit too far away.

The bedroom door closed. A shape moved from the shadows behind it. Mirron's heart lurched and she stepped back towards the window. It was surely a trick of her eyes.

'Who's there?' she said.

It was no trick. She focused her mind and saw the flares of an energy map in front of her.

'Not another pace or I will burn you where you stand.'

'Harsh words, dear Mirron. And empty. Where will you draw your energy from in a cold, dark room, I wonder? And to what purpose. No Ascendant is prey to flame.'

Mirron flushed so hot her vision blurred. The strength left her body and she sat down hard on the stone floor, grabbing at the bed frame to keep herself from falling prone. He walked forward slowly, a hand outstretched. In the dark, his energy map shone with barely suppressed power and to her struggling mind he appeared wreathed in fire. But it was him. The signature was burned within her forever. She recoiled from the hand. She opened her mouth but no words came out.

'Don't shy from me. I am not your enemy,' said Gorian.

Her vision was clearing. His features began to resolve from the gloom to add substance to the energy map. Memories came tumbling through her mind. Beauty and power. The smile that melted her. The touch under Genastro Falls. And the fury in those eyes.

'You can't be here,' she said. 'It's impossible. Go away.'

He was still walking towards her. She dragged herself to her feet and felt her way back to the shutters. Nowhere else to go. Her heart was slamming so hard in her chest she thought she was going to be sick. She could feel sweat over her whole body and a quiver in her legs that she could not control. She fought to slow her breathing.

'Why are you frightened?' Gorian was frowning. 'I could never hurt you. Not you, Mirron. The only woman I ever loved. The mother of my child.'

Mirron gasped. She wanted to shout. To scream for help. But there was nothing in her but a terror that cast a sheet of white across her energy map, obliterating all else.

'How could you—'

'Oh, Mirron, do you think King Khuran is blind inside Estorr? I know what is going on here. The work that you do and that my brothers are doing across the Conquord. Finally, the Ascendancy is achieving its rightful place. I am proud of you all. But mostly you. Bringing up our son on your own. And what a talent he will surely be. Indeed, already is.'

'You can never see him, never know him,' she said, dredging deep for courage.

'Don't be naive. Why do you think I am here?' asked Gorian, a smile on his face.

'The prophecy was right,' she whispered. 'You're here for my son.' 'And for you.'

'I'll die before I—' Mirron shook her head. 'What did you say?'

'You must have known I would come back for you, Mirron. I love you. I always have. And you have always loved me.'

Something grew within Mirron that was stronger than fear. She surged forwards and pushed him away so hard he staggered and had to grab at the bed frame to stop himself falling.

'I hoped you were dead,' she hissed. 'You raped me and ran, you bastard. Too scared to face what you'd done. Ten years I learned to live with what you did to me. I have a life. The Academy and my son. From the moment you ran, it didn't include you. And it never will. I grew up, Gorian. Why didn't you?'

Gorian's face hardened and his energy map solidified to a malevolent deep red.

'I know you, Mirron. I know that's not true.'

'I was
fourteen,''
she snapped, clinging on to her self control. 'You know nothing of me. How dare you come here and expect me to pander to your puerile fantasies. You don't scare me, Gorian. For all your cleverness you have no courage. Courage is spreading the word of the Ascendancy over the scars of hate. It is bringing truth to those who could not see it and feared what they couldn't comprehend.'