The Fall of Ossard (46 page)

“We’ll stop her with this.”

And another clove of garlic hit me on the shoulder before landing by my ear.

Pitter patter…

“You’ve heard how they talk about her. They’re frightened. They think she’s dangerous. I heard one of them call her a soul-eater!”

Pitter patter…

More garlic rained down. They were really beginning to irritate me.

Pitter patter…

“He’ll be here soon. If this stuff can’t stop her, at least he can.”

Silence…

…almost.

Pitter patter…

And my mind began to rise above its fog and find focus.

I really didn’t have time for this.

Again, so close to my family, only to have the opportunity stolen away - and this time by idiots.

Pitter patter…

With a clearing but aching mind, I passed into the celestial to spy on their souls.

Pitter patter…

Nearby, a heavy door groaned open, the sound followed by the stomp of several sets of booted feet.

I stilled my celestial work, but left my perception there, for at the same time that other world began to fill with a rising sense of menace.

In that cold void my grandmother roused. Her dark eyes dominated her sneering face, all of it surrounded by her skull halo. She hissed, “The bastard!”

Finally, I came to understand why her help had been so sporadic: She was a split person, a person of two halves, and such anger in her could only be caused by the arrival of one man.

His stern voice rang out in the real world, so I let my perception return. “Juvela Liberigo, I want to talk to you.” It was Inquisitor Anton.

The barred door to the cell squealed as it swung open. Rough hands then picked me up to stand me in front of him. The sudden movement made me gag, but none of the five men present seemed to care.

He stood there and held a wooden cup to my lips. “Drink, it’ll settle your stomach after the Moonroot.” And he tipped it to pour its liquid into my mouth. It was light and tasted of cinnamon.

“Can you walk?”

I nodded.

“Come then.” And he looked to the garlic scattered about the floor, and then with disdain at the guards. “Help her.”

By the time we rose out of the dark cellar my head had begun to clear and my stomach eased. Soon, after three staircases, we stood in a wood-panelled room with a curtained window; it was Lord Liberigo’s office.

The guards helped me into a chair while two goblets appeared on the desk in front.

Anton said, “The wooden goblet has more of the elixir, the other holds watered wine.”

He leaned back against the desk as he looked over my shoulder to the guards behind me. “Leave us.” A moment later I heard the door close.

“The elixir will free you up to cast again. Moonroot has many properties, and one is to stifle the flow of power from the celestial into this world. It will let you look into that other realm, but can confuse what you see. Even now, after you’ve had the elixir, it can for a good while afterwards befuddle your attempts to manipulate power.”

I nodded.

“Speaking of which, you’ve become quite strong.”

I slurred a little, my voice hoarse, “Not strong enough.” I reached for the watered wine.

His stern face broke into a smile. “What you did in Market Square was impressive.”

“I tried to stop a slaughter.”

“Yes, and you did.”

“I did what I had to.”

“And they say that you have followers.” And then he shook his head. “I’d hoped we’d got rid of the last of your kind twenty years ago.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He went to the chair behind the desk and sat. “We knew you were coming, that’s why we acted.”

“What are you talking about?”

His lips drew into a grim line. “I’m talking about you and your role in things.”

“What role?”

“Your role in the end of
everything
.”

Was everyone mad?

“Oh yes,
everything
. If only those fools downstairs knew, they’d have done more than pelt you with garlic.”

I shrugged.

His eyes flashed with Krienta’s power. “Everything. Don’t be shy, think about it: It starts with Ossard and then moves on; first the Heletian League and the Church of Baimiopia, and then the Ansilsae Prophecy of the Lae Velsanans, and all the others until the Divine Covenant fails. You are the start of it, and your actions would ruin it all - bringing every last faith of the established order crashing down.” He took a sip from his own wine and then looked back to me. “That’s why I have to kill you.”

“What?”

“I thought I’d done enough twenty years ago with your grandmother and the like, but obviously not.”

“The city’s falling apart, and you’re worried about me? I’m not the threat, the Reformers are!”

“Yes, they’re a threat, but one that’ll be taken care of when the fresh forces I’ve requested arrive. You on the other hand…”

I cut him off, “Your messenger won’t get through.”

He stilled and looked at me, taking my measure. “Why?”

“The Lae Velsanans told me, the ones recently in port. They said that out to sea, just over the horizon, the city is surrounded by an arc of diabolical storms. They’ve cut off Ossard!”

“A lie!” he snapped.

“Look into the celestial, you can see.”

He considered my words, but went on, “You won’t escape your fate, not this time. I’m sorry, but you must die so that the divine order can go on…” he stopped, his eyes opening wide. “By the Holy Saints, you’re right!” He looked to me. “There
is
a storm barrier, I can see it!” He paused, and then his voice softened, “My messenger’s bloating body is already surfing the squall’s damned swells.”

I slipped into the celestial to see for myself. There his messenger’s soul laid before us, the poor man’s life-light fading as it burnt out its final embers.

I whispered with a breaking voice, “The city is doomed.”

“What else did these Lae Velsanans say?”

“He said that it would be preferable to have the Inquisition rule Ossard than the Reformers, but if it wasn’t to be, that I should get out.”

“To abandon Ossard to the cults?”

“It would weaken them if I could lead enough away.”

He thought about it. “I see the truth of it.”

Silence.

He shifted in his chair. “It took until Market Square for me to be certain of you.“

“Why, the power I drew?”

“Yes, though I’d held suspicions since the kidnapping of your family. Then, at the end of that episode, you fell to your knees on the balcony and bleated out that heretical song. That’s when I first sensed your power.”

I nodded.

“Still, you’re not quite awakened, but it’d not be long now,” he grimaced, “and that
would
be the end of the world we know.”

“Help me, let’s work together. We can save Ossard!”

“Perhaps, but only for it to fall again because of you.”

“I’m not working to do anything but save my family.”

“Juvela, you’ve already started this thing, this assault on the divine order. It can’t be stopped short of killing you.”

“But what of Ossard?”

“It’s just one city.”

I was appalled.

He went on, “I’m sorry, but I have no choice: I must serve, and you must be stopped.”

And a breeze came to stir the curtains behind him, as the lamp-lit room began to feel chill and lonely.

I wondered; what kind of gods would let a whole city fall just to maintain their power?

Gods addicted to death.

He asked, “Do you lead many among the Flets?”

“Their numbers grow. When I left them this morning, there were about four hundred. They’re not all Flets, there are also Heletians.”

“Heletians?”

“Yes, they’re good people looking for hope.”

“Heretics!” And then he shrugged. “Oh, what does it matter! May they find what happiness they can before the end.”

I sat in silence, still confused by my apparent role in things.

He saw it on my face. “You don’t know your truth, do you?”

With reluctance I shook my head. “Not all of it.”

“Have it then, for in the end it’s all we have. You know you’re powerful, and that your power is divine?”

“Yes.”

“You know you’re an awakening entity; an avatar?”

“Yes.”

He studied my face, and I could feel him watching both my soul and filtering through the surface thoughts of my mind. I could shield myself from him, but not completely, a haze of feelings still escaped me.

“But you’re not to operate alone, and you didn’t know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re an awakening god, an avatar, one of a whole raft of new gods that Schoperde birthed across the world to replace the old order.”

“Why?”

“Because she thought the previous generation had grown greedy like spoilt children.”

His words reminded me of what I’d read in my grandmother’s tome. “And I’m here to end them, the old gods?”

“Yes, to end their divine rule. You along with the others.”

“Others?”

“The other avatars. Juvela, this was not something you were going to have to fight alone with a sword, nor a thing of wars in the heavens. It was merely a case of Schoperde birthing a new generation; of trying one last time.”

“One
last
time?”

“Yes, she hadn’t the strength to repeat her actions.”

“And it will all fail if you kill me?”

“Like it did before.”

My brow furrowed.

He said, “Two thousand years ago she tried the same thing and nearly succeeded. The established order did finally suppress it, but at great cost; the Lae Velsanans’ Second Dominion collapsed and many died in the calamities that followed, yet our victory wasn’t complete. One of the new gods survived.”

“And still does?”

He smiled. “She can’t help you.”

“She?“

“Dorloth of the gargoyles. She’s too strong for any of us to do anything about, but she’s also isolated in her troith amidst the ruins of fallen Kalraith.”

Could she help me?

Anton went on, “As long as my counterparts in the other established faiths do their parts in removing emerging avatars from amongst their own kind, the divine order will be maintained.” A grim smile settled on his face. “It’s one of the few things we agree upon.”

“So you won’t work with me because it’d threaten the dark regime you’re trying to keep, even though that puts you in league with cultists?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Even though Ossard will fall and become the province of the Horned God?”

“Yes.”

“That’s insane!”

“The Horned God is part of the old regime - not the new.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “You’ve enslaved the world!”

“Yes, and work to keep it that way.”

“It’s a crime!”

“Maybe, but not one punished by my god.” He shuffled, growing restless with the conversation.

I was running out of time.

“Is it true that we could have weakened them by getting out of Ossard?”

“Yes, but a hollow victory, the city would still have fallen.”

“The Lae Velsanans are carrying word to King Giovanni; Greater Baimiopia will know, and so will the Heletian League, Church, and Inquisition. They wanted us to leave if we couldn’t control the city, so as to weaken it for those who come to retake it.”

Anton nodded. “It makes some sense, but alas you’ll not have the life to see it, and I’ve sworn to my god that I’ll not flee.” He shook his head. “I can feel him turning from me already, he knows of my failure. Hopefully, when I hand him your soul in apology, he may yet offer me some kind of salvation.”

“You should leave the city and take your Loyalists with you. You could work to win it back when help arrives. We could work together.”

He shook his head. “They’ll sanctify the city, and they’ll do it soon. The kidnappings have climaxed. I’ve had word that the ritual is planned for as soon as tomorrow night.”

My family!

“Tomorrow night? Please, you must leave!”

“No, I’ve vows to guide me. I’ve planned to die tomorrow, but not until I’ve taken as many of them with me as I can. It’ll be a bloodbath, and if Krienta sends me his blessings to do it, there may very well be nothing left…”

And then another voice cut in, cold and female, purring from the shadows behind his chair, “This life I take for Mortigi!” Metal flashed from a silver blade suddenly at Anton’s neck.

He jumped out of his chair and spun about, but was trapped between it and his desk. His hands flew to his throat.

Too late!

Lady Death stepped out from the shadowed curtains and came into the light. She held her knife out with the blade’s edge bloodied.

Anton stood with his back to me, his hands still at his throat. Blood dribbled down one of them to run into the sleeve of his robe.

Lady Death chuckled, the sound deep and rich. “You’ve got your facts wrong, dear Inquisitor, but it won’t matter, not for you, you won’t be around to see it.”

Angered by such a brazen attack, but perhaps more infuriated that Krienta hadn’t intervened, he growled, “Get out of my rooms, bitch!”

She lunged forward to slap him on the cheek with the flat of her blade.

He tried to dodge her teasing strike, but couldn’t.

She mocked, “Soon enough they won’t be your rooms, the leadership of the Reformers are already coming for them!”

Anton put his bloodied hands behind him on the desk and launched himself backwards, kicking off of his chair. He pushed its heavy oak frame back into her, giving him the moment he needed to get away.

She pushed the chair aside as he jumped to the floor beside me.

I could see an ugly wound across his throat, the cut well placed, but not deep enough to kill.

Perhaps Krienta
had
intervened…

He yelled, “Men, to arms!”

The door burst open behind us, but neither of us turned. From it we could hear the Inquisitor’s call repeated.

A guard came up to stand alongside me with his sword drawn, another took up a position beside Anton. And all the while footfalls of reinforcements thundered from the corridor.