Moon's Artifice (46 page)

Rhe nodded. ‘It is time I went to find Narin and asked him that very question. The message said he had a plan – let us hope it is worth us helping the goshe do exactly as they want.’

Cautious as ever, Father Jehq stood in the concealing shade of a copse of trees until the boat was tied up at the jetty and the sailors jumped down. Goshe attendants from the hospital, all dressed in black, trotted forward to begin the process of unloading – the first of many such efforts, if Synter’s plans were falling into place. Jehq watched carefully as sacks of grain were passed over and shouldered, then stepped into the open.

A grey-cloaked man disembarked with the supplies and stood on the jetty surveying the island with such intent he did not notice Jehq at first. Hood raised to conceal his identity, the figure had clambered off the boat as soon as they arrived, not waiting for the lines to be secured in his eagerness to be on solid ground.

Jehq smiled inwardly. For all that he couldn’t see the man’s face, he knew it was Father Olos. Few of the goshe’s inner circle of Elders were as tall as the man from House Jaguar, a native of the great island ruled by House Salamander. Fewer still were so obviously unnerved by travel across water.

‘Olos !’ Jehq hailed as he reached the pebble beach. ‘You had no trouble at the docks ?’

A lined, tanned face squinted up at Jehq from the shade of his concealing hood. At last Olos scowled and swept the hood back, inclining his head to Jehq by way of response. His eyebrows and hair were all grey now, his cheeks sagging as age sapped the vitality Olos had been known for.

‘Getting busy there,’ Olos grunted, his thick southern accent still barely penetrable after all these years in the Imperial City. ‘You’ll be overrun soon.’

‘With the sick, I hope,’ Jehq nodded. ‘Our time is at hand, my friend. You have the artefact ?’ He looked around Olos at the other passenger on the boat – Caric, one of Synter’s Detenii, who was serving as guard for what would be unloaded last.

‘We got it,’ Caric replied, stepping up onto the gunwale and glancing at the men pulling supplies from the laden fishing boat. ‘Kinda wish you’d not mentioned it in front of this lot though.’

Jehq raised a hand. ‘Look at me, all of you !’ he commanded.

The sailors and goshe alike turned to face him and he felt a flash of light in his eyes. Every one of them gave a slight flinch as the
Command
Blessing took hold of them all.

‘Good – as I thought. Stop worrying, Caric. They all belong to the faithful.’

The Detenii grunted and removed his hands from the grips of the long-knives. ‘As you say,’ he said briefly, still looking wary. ‘Where do you want the crate ?’

‘The lazaret,’ Jehq said, pointing to the far end of the beach.

The goshe elder looked down on the small dock from a hump of ground at the edge of the beach ; a crescent perimeter of scrappy lumps of grass that separated it from the rest of Confessor’s Island. At each end there were larger slabs of rock seemingly broken off from the tilting cliffs that rose up behind them. Beyond the grass there were trees to Jehq’s side, small spike-leafed specimens huddled from the wind in the cliff’s lee.

The open ground was penned up by an old clay-brick wall, its yellow-tinted flanks stained by rain and grey lichen. There were two gates in the wall ; the nearer one being the larger while the smaller, near the far end of the beach, led into the leper colony. The lazaret occupied a sizeable tract of land ; space for three palazzo-sized buildings to house the lower-caste patients and another three quads of cottages for the higher castes. In addition there were barns for the animals that grazed on the rest of the island so they could be accessed from within the wall, and a sheltered community garden.

‘Into the lazaret ?’ Olos commented, surprised. ‘You intend …’ He trailed off, but Caric gave a snort as he hoisted a crate onto his shoulder and stepped onto the jetty.

‘Aye, we do. No time to be squeamish now, Father.’

Olos’ expression twisted into distaste. ‘Is that quite necessary ? There must be hundreds at the harbour by now, if not a thousand of the fever-stricken.’

‘Your compassion for our wards does you credit, my friend,’ Jehq said dryly, ‘but the sooner we’re ready, the less time there is for us to all be slaughtered.’

Caric chuckled as he passed Olos. ‘Heh – a saying the Detenii have always lived by, Father.’

An average-sized man, Caric looked strange with the large crate propped on one shoulder, but he ascended the pebble beach and stone steps cut into the turf with ease. He headed past the wide gate that led to the rest of the island, pausing only to salute a face watching him from above, and went on to the lazaret gate.

‘Come, Olos,’ Jehq said patiently, ushering his long-time colleague forward. ‘This must be done, and they will be cared for still – you know that. Even more so than before – it will be in our interests to tend to them.’

Olos shook his head sadly. He had been vital to their plans over the decades of work leading to this day, Jehq knew that all too well, but Olos had left the hard decisions to his peers – preferring life in a laboratory to the more active role Jehq had played.

It took a moment, but Olos eventually came along and the pair trailed behind Caric ; a strange mismatch, with the smaller of the two almost supporting his colleague for the first dozen paces.

‘Do we have a number ?’ Olos asked, walking taller as they arrived at the door. From behind it they heard the heavy clack of bolts being opened.

‘Of souls ?’ Jehq shook his head. ‘Nothing so definite I’m afraid.’

‘You’re the one who’s worked with the artefact most, are you not ?’

Jehq inclined his head. ‘Each mind is different – and we had never expected to factor in so many fever-born. I have a broad idea ; certainly by the end of the day we will be able to touch every goshe in the Empire, even those in the eastern Shures of Raven. Synter’s left us exposed, but at the same time her boldness has brought us all we need.’

‘Fever-born ?’

‘The name we’ve given them to differentiate them from the moon-born – those goshe who were dosed with Moon’s Artifice as children. We’d only ever thought to use those mental deficients in our care to be fever-born, a few score perhaps. Just enough souls to give the artefact power to reach the nearest moon-born and spread from there.’

Olos looked around. ‘The lazar colony will need to be expanded then, the hospital too. The variant you’ve used will make them helpless – entirely dependent on the goshe for care.’

‘And care they will receive,’ Jehq reminded him, ‘care commensurate with the divine spirit they will then carry.’ He smiled. ‘You will, of course, be in a position to ensure that !’

Olos was silent a moment, watching Caric manoeuvre the crate into a position where it could fit through the small gate. Gauntlet-clad hands reached out from within to help and together they turned it to scrape through.

‘You are right, Jehq,’ Olos said with a nod, ‘and I am not ignorant of how we reached this point. How long do you think this will take ?’

‘Shoolen ?’ Jehq called through the gate, prompting a thin, black-skinned man to dart out. ‘Have you finished here ?’

‘All done, Father,’ the Dragon said with a subservient bob of the head. ‘They’re all down ; had their medicine more’n an hour past.’

‘Then we’re ready to proceed,’ Jehq confirmed. ‘Go up to the hospital and finish off there.’ He turned to Olos. ‘We need physical contact for each one, but it should only be a matter of moments to complete the process. Our pet demon is quick about its tasks and it was born just for this.’

‘And so the moon rises,’ Father Olos intoned. The act of speaking the words seemed to give him strength and he went inside with renewed purpose. Jehq watched the man with a small smile.

‘Indeed it does,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s just hope the stars don’t get there first.’

It was chilly in the Lord Martial’s chamber – a round room on the top floor of the Palace of Law, exposed to the vagrant sea breezes through three tall windows. Rhe stood perfectly still in the middle of the room, hands behind his back and staring straight ahead at the painting of the Emperor facing him.

On the Lord Martial’s polished oak desk was an oil lamp from which shone warm golden light. It resembled an orrery, the head of the lamp a great brass sun with the constellations of the Gods cut into it, while through the windows shone a colder light from the grey sky.

‘You and Law Master Sheven are agreed ?’ Lord Martial ald Har said at last. ‘This is the correct course ?’ He looked up from his desk, his startling red-tinted eyes looking infernal and incongruous with his lined, aged face.

‘We are, my Lord. If we are wrong, if the girl has lied and circumstances have worked out to deceive me, the result will simply be wasted effort and my personal humiliation. That is a price worth paying, but I am not wrong. This much I know.’

‘Men will die. This is unprecedented.’

‘I understand. We do not suggest it lightly, but the reckoning has come.’

Ald Har let out a heavy sigh and stood. Walking around the desk he headed to the nearest of the double-height windows and opened it. The window faced south-east, towards Confessor’s Island. On a clear day the awkward lump of Confessor’s Hill was visible seven or eight miles in the distance, over the headland outside the city. He was quiet a long while – long enough that Rhe was forced to wonder what was going through his mind.

‘Answer me this, Lawbringer,’ Lord ald Har said after a long while. ‘Do you aspire to this office ?’

Rhe blinked. ‘I … I do not know,’ he admitted at last.

‘No ? You are the presumptive heir in the eyes of the city – not to me, unless I live well into my dotage, but to someone, surely ?’

‘I realise others consider me so,’ Rhe said stiffly. ‘It is not the only thing expected of me by some.’

‘Ah yes, Godhood. Well then, do you aspire to that ? To be an Ascendant God and live among the stars ?’

‘I aspire to be worthy …’ Rhe stopped. ‘No, that sounds rehearsed and I would not have you think of me that way. I have thought about it, it is hard not to when the city’s gossips suggest such a thing. But Godhood ? How does a man even consider such a thing ? The later Ascendants were all raised – or rather noticed by the Gods – through near-perfection in some discipline. They were considered supreme by mortal standards, but what does that mean to me ? There is a Lord Lawbringer already ; what would perfection in my chosen discipline bring me ? How could that even be measured ?’

Rhe shook his head. ‘And most importantly – when I see I am not suited to a mortal supremacy, the position you hold, how could I aspire to higher ?’

‘You feel yourself unworthy ?’

‘Worthiness cannot be so easily judged – suitability is another thing entirely. You are the Emperor’s servant, but you are also the face who must defend this corner of authority against the Great Houses ; against the priests of every temple and likely factions of Imperial castes too.’

Ald Har nodded at that. ‘We are servants of the Emperor, not noblemen. You of all castes are aware of that.’

‘One look at my assigned rooms is reminder enough,’ Rhe said. The Lord Martial turned with a questioning look, but an awkward smile told him it had been a poorly-executed attempt at levity rather than a complaint.

‘Administration can be learned,’ ald Har continued. ‘There are clerks able to manage the load and the Law Masters are yours to command.’

‘I know, but it would not be enough. You are an inspiration, a leader – I … I am an ideal at best. The others choose to believe what they will about me and so my legend is furthered, but that does not equip me to manage politicians, to negotiate or be a leader of men.’

‘Yet that is exactly what you intend to do.’

It was Rhe’s turn to be silent for a while. ‘I suppose so – but while it was ideals that brought me to the Lawbringers, I was always out of place in my House. Unwilling to live a life of idleness, I could see no place for me within the military. I am not a man to follow ; I am not a man to lead. I heard one playwright called me an army of one, but they don’t know how right they are.

‘I despise soldiers as deeply as courtiers. The single consuming purpose of combat – that I understand, but the unthinking, thuggish aggression men mistake for prowess ? They could be an army of dogs, trained to heel and worked up into frenzy when required. But the strictures of an army, the regulations and structure ? The forced shelter of comradeship ? The purpose I aspire to – I crave – is not to be found within an army. I do not know if it is even to be found within the Lawbringers, but here at least I know that my efforts can be turned to a greater good.’

‘Have you read the writings of Lord Duellist ?’

‘I have.’

‘And ?’

‘And he and I are of the same mind,’ Rhe hesitated, ‘except in one respect.’

‘Which is ?’

‘The man who was to become a God thought to teach others what he had learned, to tell the whole world the shape of his thoughts.’

The Lord Martial gave him a long appraising look. ‘When you read his treatises, you couldn’t understand why he’d bothered to write such a thing down ?’

Rhe nodded. ‘I was young and it had never occurred to me that others would not think that way. He described the shape of the world, nothing more. What need do I have of reading the sky is blue, that the Gods orbit above us ? For Duellist it was the end of a journey of enlightenment. In my heart I feel no awakening, no understanding or revelatory insight. There is just the prism through which I view the world – I cannot truly conceive how others might believe the sky is green. And that is, perhaps, the reason I will never be suited for Godhood.’

‘Nor for this room,’ ald Har said, gesturing around them. There was a flush to his cheeks, Rhe saw. Anger ? Disappointment ? ‘Not that you cannot think as others might, but that you don’t struggle. There is no conflict within you, no doubt or interest in the path not taken. That is why I fear to approve your scheme – you don’t fear death. You don’t fear anything, not truly, and what happens to those who follow a fearless man ?’